Opinion: The coaches vs. media game was Joe Mazzulla’s way of showing love
The score may have been lopsided but they treated us like equals.
COMMENTARY
There’s a weird narrative going around about the Celtics coaches vs. media game that was played at the Auerbach Center on Tuesday.
I’ve seen more than a few people online saying that Mazzulla having local media members play against his coaching staff which was loaded with former pros and Division I players was a form of bullying.
I’ve heard more than a few people ask the following questions: What’s the point of full-court pressing a bunch of sportswriters for 12 minutes and beating them 57-4? What exactly was Joe trying to prove? Wasn’t there another way to go about it?
Let me attempt to address a few of these concerns.
This was no attempt at bullying. Bullying is forcing someone with less power than you to do things that they don’t want to do. I’m a grown man. I’m 6-foot-6, 260 pounds. Joe Mazzulla didn’t force me to do anything.
He actually gave my colleagues and I a great opportunity not only to play a game at the Celtics’ practice facility but to get to know him and his coaching staff better.
If Mazzulla walked up to you and said, ‘hey, do you want to play basketball with me’, would you really turn him down? That would obviously be the wrong choice. You take your chances and you get to see exactly what it’s like running up and down the floor with an NBA championship coach and your reward is that you get to tell the story forever.
How many people get the opportunity to actually play a real game on that floor? Better yet, how many people get a chance to see those coaches up close and personal for an extended period of time that didn’t involve them doing their jobs?
It was an inside glimpse of what the coaches are like away from the podium. We got to see their competitiveness first hand. Mazzulla had his team full-court pressing from the opening tip. If he saw anyone taking it the least bit easy, he was yelling at them to go harder. He fist-pumped after God Shamgod Jr. hit a buzzer-beater to seal the 53-point victory.
He and his assistants refused to water down the experience and I appreciate them for that because that’s how Joe really is. He hates to lose, he wants to steamroll his opponents if he can, and he can be aggressively stubborn at times which we all see at his press conferences.
I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It would have been way more disrespectful if he sized us up, said ‘these guys and girls can’t play’ and told his staff to take it easy on us. Having someone tell you to your face that you aren’t worth taking seriously would have been a real embarrassment. Instead, we got an authentic taste of the experience.
One thing about Joe, he didn’t take us lightly. He wanted a shutout. He almost got it.
What did he have to prove from beating us so mercilessly? That we’re all human beings who enjoy the game of basketball and should get to know each other better.
As Mazzulla mentioned during a recent appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub, he barely gets to interact with members of the media outside of a press conference setting.
We’re often catching him at the end of his work day and asking him what went wrong and how he can do better. Sometimes that involves him snapping at us because he’s frustrated that he has to answer our questions.
We all have jobs to do. It’s our job to report what happened, good or bad, and that naturally leads to a fair amount of conflict because the Celtics aren’t going to win every game. Even when they do win, there are always things that can be improved. So, we ask the questions in hopes of relaying answers to you readers.
They don’t want to give away any information that would give their opponents an edge and it’s our job to get as much information as we can from them. There will always be disagreements on how both sides handle that.
While we spend a fair amount of time together, that process isn’t made for us to get to know the whole person. To do that, you have to spend time with people outside of the context of work. Tuesday’s game allowed us to do just that.
Mazzulla said he learned a lot about us. We certainly learned about him. He also took the time out to hang out with us after the game which was a nice touch. If we’re the ones showing up every day to tell the story about how he does his job then it only makes sense that he would want to do some things that might broaden our perspective.
Mazzulla said the game was basically his version of taking us out for dinner. The only thing that would have made it better, he said, was if we went out for beers afterward. I second that.
You think what Mazzulla says at the podium is quirky and interesting? Imagine him when he’s actually loose and not having to speak on behalf of one of the most storied franchises in sports.
So, yeah, Mazzulla had a stacked team and he knew it. He didn’t just acknowledge the mismatches, he hunted them. He did not care one bit about catering to our egos. He refused to let up until the buzzer sounded. Then he was gracious after he won.
Remind anyone of how things went during the 2024 championship run?
I’ll remember that day for a long time, not because Amile Jefferson caught an an alley-oop dunk or because Phil Pressey, Tony Dobbins, and Shammgod kept spraying threes relentlessly when the game was already out of reach.
I’ll remember it because those guys let us into their world for 12 minutes. That’s special. I know firsthand how closed off people can be with the media.
The score may have been lopsided but they treated us like equals. He said he wants to run it back. I say bring it on.
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