Inside the Celtics media’s 53-point loss to Joe Mazzulla and his coaching staff
Maybe Joe Mazzulla just requested a laugh Maybe he sought to embarrass us as punishment for asking the same annoying postgame questions for the last three years Maybe he desired to provide selected post-practice entertainment for the large group of players including Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown who were watching from the lounge that overlooks the Auerbach Center s two courts Whatever his reason Mazzulla chose to put his own diabolical spin on the Celtics preseason media tournament Tuesday afternoon Rather than dividing the participating media members into teams and having them play against each other as the C s and other Boston pro teams have done in the past Mazzulla turned the scrimmage into a showdown between the Celtics media corps and the Celtics coaching staff I don t want to break it to you but you re not playing against each other the head coach revealed about minutes before tipoff as he wrapped up an otherwise unremarkable courtside news conference You re playing against the coaches Those coaches included Mazzulla the former starting point guard on a West Virginia squad that reached the Final Four And Da Sean Butler his teammate on that Mountaineers squad And Amile Jefferson who played with Tatum at Duke and later spent time with the Orlando Magic And ex-Celtics guard Phil Pressey And DJ MacLeay who played games at Bucknell and stands -foot- And Tony Dobbins who had a long career overseas after playing at Virginia Tech and Richmond And God Shammgod Jr who s less than a decade removed from a standout career at Fairmont State All of those guys are in their mid- s or younger Majority are in their s including -year-old Mazzulla the NBA s youngest proceeding head coach If you put the Celtics staff up against any of its counterparts around the league I d like its chances in a pickup event On talent experience and athleticism alone that group could have sleepwalked its way to supremacy over a media side that well lacked all three of those things But they didn t take it easy on the folks who are paid to write and talk about basketball not play it Unfortunately there were no players-turned-analysts a la Brian Scalabrine or Eddie House on hand to level the playing field a bit At Mazzulla s constant urging the coaches played with unrelenting intensity especially on the defensive end They pressed full-court for the entire meeting They trapped Mazzulla yelled out calls scrapped for rebounds and celebrated turnovers and there were so so numerous turnovers Preponderance of Group Media s possessions lasted about three seconds How a great number of legitimate scoring chances were there Maybe tops Even fewer shots that came remotely close to finding the net The number of made baskets by media members was easier to recall a grand total of two There was a transition layup by Bobby Krivitsky of Hardwood Houdini and a putback by Boston com s Khari Thompson That was all If nothing else it was an extraordinarily up-close look at the hyper-aggressive practice tempo the Celtics have been hyping up since the start of training camp Thankfully no reporters came away with Payton Pritchard-esque neck wounds At the other end Mazzulla and his lieutenants easily uncovered mismatches down low and wide-open looks from three without needing to run any sort of offensive system Shammgod was especially lethal from outside draining back-to-back -pointers at one point that made it - less than six minutes in Pressey also buried a limited The -foot- Jefferson threw down multiple dunks Mazzulla kept pushing pushing pushing The lead reached points Then Then Completely against a thoroughly gassed media defense Shammgod received a pass just inside halfcourt and launched a high-arcing logo three that swished through as time expired Celtics group reporter Taylor Snow captured a video of that game-ending buzzer-beater followed by a slow pan over to the scoreboard The final total Coaches Media In a championship that mercifully only lasted minutes It was that bad and honestly it could have been worse Celtics Coaches vs Celtics Media wait for the final amount pic twitter com q SeqH jVu Taylor Snow taylorcsnow October If constituents ridicule was Mazzulla s goal he got his wish As of early Wednesday morning that video had been viewed more than million times on X The Celtics players seemed to enjoy themselves too As the reporters gathered for a postgame huddle a radiating Brown called down from above asking which of us want ed to do media player-speak for who would volunteer to come to the podium and answer questions about our abysmal performance Fortunately no such press conference occurred After the - beatdown the Celtics held a legitimate reporters-vs -reporters media encounter both were sponsored by the Jr Celtics Academy and Mazzulla watched the whole thing from the sideline shouting occasional commentary and tweaking the clock late to engineer a more exciting ending That matchup was far more competitive with Club White edging Association Green - Let s skip the undercard next year
