Joe Mazzulla will return as Celtics coach. Brad Stevens explains why.

Celtics

“I believed he did a extremely good job with this group.”

Joe Mazzulla will return as head coach of the Boston Celtics subsequent season, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens stated Thursday.

The Celtics completed one win wanting making the NBA Finals in Mazzulla’s first season as coach. Stevens admitted that Mazzulla was studying on the fly all year long, echoing a sentiment that numerous gamers had shared earlier.

Regardless of that, Stevens stated that he believes Mazzulla is the most suitable choice for the workforce going ahead.

“I believed he did a extremely good job with this group,” Stevens stated. “All people goes to overreact to the most effective gamers and coaches after each sport. That’s at all times the way in which it’s. We all know that moving into. So, we now have to have the ability to decide issues on the entire.”

“He’s a terrific chief,” Stevens continued. “He’ll solely get higher at something that he can study from this 12 months as a result of he’s consistently making an attempt to study. And he’s accountable. These management qualities are arduous to seek out. I do know they’re simple to speak about, however when you’ll be able to present all these by means of the expectations and the microscope that he was underneath, that’s arduous to do.”

Mazzulla shouldered the blame after Sport 3, when Miami blew out the Celtics and claimed a 3-0 lead within the Japanese Convention Finals. The Celtics fought arduous to erase the deficit, however in the end got here up brief in Sport 7 at TD Backyard.

“Was he excellent? Would he wish to have some moments again? Each coach would,” Stevens stated. “Even the coaches no person talks about would. All of us which have coached understand how arduous that’s. On the identical time, our gamers, our employees, everyone round him believes in him and we’ve acquired to do our greatest to assist him going ahead.”

Stevens pointed to the truth that Mazzulla was named interim coach a few week earlier than the season began. He stated that he desires so as to add a extremely skilled veteran assistant coach to assist Mazzulla. Former Celtics coach Ime Udoka is anticipated to rent three of Mazzulla’s assistants away to hitch his employees with the Houston Rockets, in response to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe.

“We’re going to search for at the least one addition to the bench,” Stevens stated.
“[Mazzulla] goes to steer the cost, however we’re going to search for any person that’s acquired a variety of NBA expertise for certain.”

Stevens stated he was impressed with how Mazzulla dealt with being named interim coach the week earlier than the season began. He referred to as the Celtics’ begin to the season “outstanding.”

“I might need stated this in September: I couldn’t have performed that. I at all times wanted a complete summer time of planning, a complete summer time of pondering and organizing ideas and having the ability to get your self to emphasise what you need to emphasize every day. There’s no query [more time] will likely be an enormous profit.”