Celtics Players Offer Up Favorite, Funny Joe Mazzulla Quotes

Derrick White said following Boston’s Game 3 win in the NBA Finals that Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla was a “sicko” and probably enjoyed his team having to fend off a furious Dallas Mavericks fourth-quarter rally.

Mazzulla usually goes against the grain when it comes to his fellow NBA head coaches, not that he minds one bit.

The second-year head coach also has bizarre sayings he likes to tell his team, and a couple of Celtics players picked their favorite ones Thursday when they met with the media ahead of Friday’s Game 4 at American Airlines Center.

“There’s no fouls in a war. You either die or you don’t,” Sam Hauser recalled Mazzulla saying, per CLNS Media. “That was a good one.”

Derrick White chose a Mazzulla quote that centered around the 35-year-old winning Eastern Conference Coach of the Month honors — Mazzulla received that recognition three times this season.

But Mazzulla actually wasn’t impressed by it or what White had to say about it, either.

“When he won Coach of the Month, and I was like, ‘Hey, congratulations,’ and he just looked at me and said, ‘Nobody cares,'” White said, per NBC Sports Boston.

Mazzulla even used a UFC analogy to get the Celtics ready for Game 3 as they took a stranglehold on the series.

Mazzulla may be eccentric and offer up some bizarre responses, but he’s done his job from the sideline exceptionally this year and has Boston just one win away for claiming Banner 18.