Joe Mazzulla Explains Unexpected Parquet Kiss During Banner Ceremony

BOSTON — Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla is one of a kind, whether during an intense playoff battle, postgame press conference or while being introduced during the team’s Banner 18 ceremony on Opening Night.

Mazzulla savored the moment by kneeling before the TD Garden crowd and kissing the parquet floor prior to receiving his championship ring. The NBA’s youngest head coach to win an NBA Finals since Bill Russell (1969) surprised nearly everyone in attendance with a reaction to the organization’s long-awaited celebration with yet another Joe being Joe moment.

“I just thought that was a moment, a way for me to express myself,” Mazzulla said after Boston’s crushing 132-109 win over the Knicks. “The parquet, that’s where the blood, sweat and tears of the greats (have been). So I don’t get to go out there and dive on the floor for loose balls like I’d love to or do any of that. So that was a way to express the passion and the gratitude that I have for our team, for the people that have come before and for what it means to be a Celtic. So there’s no place better than the city and the team and just being in the arena with the people. That was important.”

Boston promoted Mazzulla two seasons ago from interim fill-in for a then-fired Ime Udoka, placing the team’s ex-assistant in the hot seat. Therefore, the journey wasn’t just a mountain climb for Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to earn league-wide validation as champions, but for Mazzulla’s philosophy to also prove itself effective. The criticism of chucking up 3-pointers left and right, abandoning defensive identity and embracing the adversity of defeat, too, validated itself. Mazzulla’s been unique in every way since moving up to the top of Boston’s coaching ranks and, so far, it’s done wonders.

Mazzulla, of course, couldn’t help but provide an on-brand psycho-Joe review of how the Garden’s parquet tasted when asked.

“Blood,” Mazzulla responded. “I mean, I wish it did.”

More important than embracing the well-earned moment of being celebrated by a packed home crowd, Mazzulla and the Celtics embraced the step-by-step journey of an 82-game season. Boston crushed New York — fast — by outscoring the new-look Knicks, 43-24, in the first quarter and shot 55.1% while putting 74 points up on the board in the first half. New York held its only lead of one point in the first quarter, watching the Celtics continuously inflict a classic Mazzulla-coached Boston beatdown.

The Celtics even fell a single 3-pointer shy of breaking the 2020 NBA record for most made in a single game and instead tied the Milwaukee Bucks with 29.

Opening Night wasn’t just the first game but the start of what could be something special for Mazzulla’s squad come the end of the year and beyond.