One NBA insider isn’t shutting down the idea of the Boston Celtics moving on from head coach Joe Mazzulla after this season.
Brian Windhorst of ESPN believes the Celtics could fire Mazzulla after one season given how the Eastern Conference Finals have gone thus far.
The Miami Heat are up 3-0 in the series despite not having home-court advantage.
“When you have a collapse like this … It’s dangerous. … I can no longer say that I don’t think it’s possible that [the Celtics] would make a change [at head coach],” Windhorst said.
NBA NEWS & RUMORS: Ime Udoka & Boston Celtics Updates
Mazzulla replaced Ime Udoka, who was dismissed before the season started, and Adrian Wojnarowski said on NBA Countdown that the Celtics players “never got over” Udoka being let go.
“This locker room never got over Ime Udoka’s dismissal as head coach,” Wojnarowski said. “These players did not accept the organization’s reasoning for doing it. They thought it was a wild overreaction. There were a lot of people on the outside who thought it was an overreaction. That it was an HR matter.
“I think for this team and talking to the management, they never got any more answers than the public was getting on this. This doesn’t mean they haven’t accepted Joe Mazzulla as head coach, but this is a team that really believed in Ime Udoka and had a strong connection with him.”
The Celtics reached the NBA Finals last season. Even though they lost to the Golden State Warriors in six games, Boston players believed in Udoka’s vision.
NBA NEWS & RUMORS: Ime Udoka & Boston Celtics Updates
The Houston Rockets recently hired Udoka to be their new head coach.
“I think there were a couple instances this season where a lot of that angst resurfaced,” Woj said. “First, when the Brooklyn Nets nearly hired Udoka as head coach, and then when the Rockets did. Certainly, those were factors.”
It will be interesting to see what happens to Mazzulla after the conference finals end. No team in NBA history has erased a 3-0 series deficit in the playoffs, so the Heat will likely win this series and advance to the NBA Finals to face Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets.
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