Joe Mazzulla Has Open Ears To All Celtics Narratives — Good And Bad

Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla can’t escape the outside noise, and that’s not an issue.

Mazzulla underwent a roller-coaster debut season, abruptly promoted from assistant to the head honcho of Boston’s coaching staff with a minuscule window for preparation before the start of the campaign. Now, with a new staff behind him and an improved roster to work with, Mazzulla and the Celtics are significantly better positioned to make a run at Banner 18.

Regardless of what portrayals — good or bad — develop outside of the organization, Mazzulla is accepting of it all.

“It’s (expletive) awesome,” Mazzulla told Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe during Monday’s team practice. “It’s comedic relief. Do I really expect you to wake up one day and say, ‘Joe Mazzulla’s a great coach?’ I don’t expect that. And you don’t owe me anything.

“So we live in this space where we take the good with the bad. Everybody’s a little bit right in what they say. No one’s 100 percent wrong. I just laugh about it. I think it’s hysterical. I don’t give a (expletive) what other people think.”

At times, Mazzulla’s been combative, whether that’d be with members of the media or officials on the court. However, the intentions are always consistent in that Mazzulla sticks by his guns, and only expresses care for what he believes is best for the Celtics.

During the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament, Mazzulla went full throttle and aimed for Boston’s qualification, which required hacking Chicago Bulls center Andre Drummond to meet a point differential requirement. That isn’t traditional for coaches of any sport, much less the NBA, where opponents can easily get rattled and sense disrespect from the underlying intentions.

As Mazzulla noted when referencing reporters and their stances on his coaching, he doesn’t care. If it’s not Celtics-centric and in accordance with where the organization stands, Mazzulla isn’t interested.

Mazzulla’s open ears go beyond what radio shows or online bloggers have to say after Boston coughs up a fourth-quarter lead in the middle of January. He’s also applied tips and tricks from outside the NBA, claiming that the defensive schemes ran this season are heavily inspired by the NFL.

Well, the Celtics rank second in defensive rating (110.6) among all NBA teams so as the saying goes, numbers don’t lie, right? The proof is in the pudding and the fact of the matter is Boston hasn’t been positioned better in making a run at the NBA Finals during the Jayson Tatum-Jaylen Brown era.

So far, Mazzulla’s done his part in helping make that possible.