Joe Mazzulla began the season as an assistant coach. He then grew to become interim head coach of the Boston Celtics, in a most surprising method.
And now, the NBA’s youngest head coach is headed to the All-Star Game.
The 34-year-old Mazzulla and his Celtics workers of assistants will coach Team Giannis — the group that can be captained by Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo — within the Feb. 19 recreation at Salt Lake City. They clinched that likelihood on Monday night time when Philadelphia misplaced to Orlando, an end result that ensured Boston would have the main document within the Eastern Conference on the shut of play on Sunday.
Sunday is the cutoff for the league to find out All-Star coaches; the groups with the very best information to that time get the proper to ship their teaching staffs to the sport, supplied they hadn’t had the job the 12 months earlier than. Denver’s Michael Malone is at the moment the front-runner to teach Team LeBron, the squad that can be captained by the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James.
“It definitely hasn’t been easy the whole time,” Mazzulla stated final week when requested in regards to the challenges of the season thus far. “But it’s been fun. It’s been rewarding.”
Mazzulla has the Celtics, the reigning Eastern Conference champions, off to an NBA-best document of 36-15 thus far this season.
They haven’t missed a beat regardless of going by way of a tumultuous starting of the 12 months as soon as Boston suspended coach Ime Udoka for the season; an investigation by an exterior legislation agency discovered Udoka dedicated a number of violations of group insurance policies for what sources informed The Associated Press concerned an inappropriate relationship with a girl within the group.
“You’ve just got to move on,” Celtics All-Star ahead Jayson Tatum stated. “Nobody’s going to feel bad for us. We’ve got games to play, we’ve got work to do. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t tough in the beginning with the injuries and obviously getting a new coach two days before the season started. But I think we did a great job of managing that and it’s showing.”
Mazzulla is believed to be the primary interim coach in NBA historical past to have the All-Star teaching alternative. He will coach the group that Antetokounmpo drafts shortly earlier than the sport; the captains, in a change this season, gained’t choose their groups till recreation night time in Salt Lake City.
Mazzulla is the primary Celtics coach to get the All-Star nod since Brad Stevens — now the Celtics’ president of basketball operations — in 2017. He turns into the eighth Celtics coach to function an All-Star coach. Red Auerbach, Tom Heinsohn, Okay.C. Jones, Doc Rivers, Chris Ford, Bill Fitch and Stevens are the others.
Mazzulla had been a Boston assistant for the final three years, and till this season his solely head teaching expertise was a two-year stint from 2017-19 at Division II Fairmont State in West Virginia.
But he’s made teaching the Celtics look simple.
“Overwhelming? No. Has it been hard? Yeah,” Mazzulla stated. “Has there been moments where you’ve kind of had to trust, has there been moments of being uncomfortable? Absolutely. But it hasn’t been overwhelming, just because of the guys, the organization, the people that were here getting through it together.”
