Joe Mazzulla will return as head coach of the Boston Celtics for the 2023-24 NBA season, team president of basketball operations Brad Stevens told reporters on Thursday.
The Celtics lost to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals in seven games. Mazzulla took over for Ime Udoka, who led Boston to the NBA Finals last season.
Stevens remains confident that Mazzulla not only was an effective coach for this Celtics, but that he will continue to improve as he gains more experience. The organization values the sense of accountability that he holds despite the pressures he faces.
“I thought he, again, did a really good job with this group,” Stevens said of Mazzulla. “Everybody’s going to overreact to the best players and coaches after every game. That’s always the way it is. We know that going in so we have to be able to judge things on the whole. And he’s a terrific leader. He’ll only get better at anything that he can learn from this year because he’s constantly trying to learn. And he’s accountable.
“Those leadership qualities are hard to find. And I know they’re easy to talk about, but when you can show all those through the expectations and the microscope that he was under, that’s hard to do.”
NBA NEWS & RUMORS: Joe Mazzulla, Brad Stevens & Boston Celtics Updates
Stevens acknowledged that Mazzulla surely has some decisions and outcomes that he’d like to get back that occurred this season. However, as a former coach himself, Stevens is acutely aware that any coach would feel the same about any game or season.
“And so, yeah, was he perfect? Would he like to have some moments back? Every coach would. Even the coaches nobody talks about would,” Stevens said. “We all that have coached know how hard that is. And at the same time, our players, our staff, everybody around him believes in him and we’ve gotta do our best to support him going forward. And I think it’s really important that we share results here.
NBA NEWS & RUMORS: Joe Mazzulla, Brad Stevens & Boston Celtics Updates
“Outside of our walls, we can do the dissecting of whose fault things are. Inside of our walls, we have 60 people in basketball operations and we’ve all gotta do the best we can to get the results we want,” Stevens said. “And we all share it when it goes our way and we share it when it doesn’t go our way. And that’s gotta start with all of us. We have to all look at it that way. And I’m appreciative of our coaches being that way.
With there being constant speculation about the Celtics’ potential roster changes this offseason, Stevens made it a point to highlight the admiration he has for the players holding themselves accountable in the same way his coaching staff has done.
NBA NEWS & RUMORS: Joe Mazzulla, Brad Stevens & Boston Celtics Updates
“I admire our players being that way. It is not easy to get up there and be accountable and to take ownership and know that all through it you accomplished a lot to get to the point where we were,” Stevens said. So I have a great deal of admiration for their willingness to do that. And I think it speaks to the quality of character we have in here. We just have to be a little bit better.”
The Celtics won 57 games in the regular season and went 11-9 in the 2023 playoffs.
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