Joe Mazzulla didn’t appear fascinated with getting too sentimental on Sunday.
Suddenly thrust into the Celtics’ huge chair lower than two weeks in the past, after Ime Udoka was suspended for your entire season, Mazzulla made his NBA head teaching debut in Sunday’s preseason opener towards the Hornets. But the 34-year-old was all enterprise.
Asked what his emotions have been as he entered his first sport as a head coach, Mazzulla was solely centered on the job at hand.
“Just carry over. We had four good days of practice,” he stated. “We have an identity. We know what we’re playing for. We know what we’re trying to get to, and it starts today. You can’t skip steps. We’ve all said that, but now we have to prove that. So I think that’s kind of what we’re focused on.”
It was solely a preseason sport, however Sunday’s 134-93 rout of the Hornets mirrored the whole lot that’s been discovered of Mazzulla within the 10 days since he was named the Celtics’ interim coach. He didn’t appear overwhelmed. He appeared cool and calm. And like a few of his gamers have stated over the primary week of coaching camp, he regarded like a pure as he roamed the sidelines for the primary time.
“I thought he was terrific. I thought he was great. I thought he was composed,” stated Malcolm Brogdon. “I thought he had some excellent out of timeout plays. I thought he did an excellent job. It’s going to continue to get tougher for him, continue to get tougher for us as we get to the regular season and teams start really scouting us we play high-level competition, but I think me and all my teammates have the utmost confidence in him to be ready for that and keep us motivated and continue to prepare us the right way.”
What’s Mazzulla like as a head coach throughout a sport? How does he talk along with his gamers? Brogdon stated he was a relaxing presence, which in his opinion is ideal for the stage he’s on.
“For my first taste today, he’s not a yeller, he’s not a screamer,” Brogdon stated. “He’s very deliberate, very direct. He’s not a guy that’s gonna over-talk you and tell you too much because he wants you to go out and have a clear mind. He’s going to be very direct and very honest with what he expects from you, which is I think everything an NBA player wants in a coach.”
It’s clear that Mazzulla doesn’t need to make any of this case about himself. He’s leaning on his teaching employees for his or her assist and steering, and he’s preaching collaboration along with his gamers as he figures out what makes them comfy and so they construct on their identification as a staff. Even after the ultimate buzzer, he deflected consideration away from himself when given a chance to mirror on the way it felt to be an NBA head coach for the primary time.
“I felt like I was coaching a great team that wanted to win,” Mazzulla stated. “That was fun to coach.”
While Mazzulla didn’t get too private in regards to the journey that led him to his first probability at being a head coach, he does acknowledge how particular of a place he’s in, and he took a second to supply a token of appreciation.
“Just grateful for it,” Mazzulla stated. “Like I said, grateful because of the Celtics, grateful because I get to coach a bunch of great guys and great players and not many people in my position get that opportunity. So I’m just really being more grateful than anything else.”
On the floor, Sunday didn’t precisely current the hardest teaching problem for Mazzulla because the Celtics went on an enormous run within the second quarter and by no means regarded again in a 41-point win over an inferior Hornets staff. But Mazzulla admitted he made errors – although he didn’t share what they have been – and stated there’ll most likely be some extra as he figures the whole lot out on the fly. Though the C’s got here away with a convincing victory on Sunday, he is aware of there’s lots to work on shifting ahead.
“Our guys tried to do the right thing, they played hard, and we got a lot on film that we can learn from,” Mazzulla stated. “So it’s a balance. It’s a balance of this is what we did well, but it doesn’t really matter because we have to continue to get better.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com