A pep talk for Joe Mazzulla

Comedian, writer, and Celtics fan, Josh Gondelman, with a pep talk for the reigning champs reigning coach.

Hi Basketball Feelings Readers,

My name is Josh Gondelman. I’m a writer and comedian. I’m also a Celtics fan who has lived in New York for the past thirteen years and has adopted the Liberty as my lone NYC rooting interest. Every Monday I write a newsletter called That’s Marvelous, which is full of pep talks, and in that spirit Katie asked me to write some words of encouragement for Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla while she’s away. 

So, here goes!

Coach Mazzulla, first of all congratulations on the recent NBA championship. You and the team worked so hard to earn that title, and you brought so much joy to me and many other like-minded monsters with roots in New England. It is not your fault that I am now older than not only all the players (including Al Horford) on the Celtics’ roster, but also their coach. That’s for me to deal with through therapy or meditation or alcohol consumption. 

Over the course of last season, you became nationally known for your roiling intensity, which I would categorize somewhere between “wolverine in a burlap sack” and “one of those controlled fires they use to keep forests healthy.” You reportedly showed videos of killer whales to your players to teach them a lesson about teamwork. As far as I know, no other coach is such a proponent of orcalytics.

You practice martial arts to… relax(?) You also are well known for having the movie The Town playing on a loop on a tiny projection screen behind your eyelids, even when you sleep (or something like that). This is a level of hyper-competitive mania that people accept because your team bopped the league over the head with a mallet while for some reason the basketball-watching public outside of a 100-mile radius decided they’d rather be haters than appreciate greatness. The ends justified the means. Not that the means were bad. It’s just that if someone at a pickup run at a local gym or park brought your level of unwavering focus to the game, you would fear for that person’s sanity.

Coming into this season, you’ve remained relentless. While appearing on an episode of the Locked On Celtics podcast you mentioned having a target on your backs as the reigning champs, then continued: "People are going to say that the target is on our back, but I hope it is right on our forehead in between our eyes. I hope I can see the red dot.” At most other jobs, openly hoping your professional rivals attempt to murder you with a sniper rifle, even as a metaphor, would earn you a visit with the director of human resources.

Coach Mazzulla, you are very good at your job, a position you assumed under less-than-ideal circumstances a couple of years ago. You guided your players to the highest competitive achievement (and then three of those players reached the other peak of competitive achievement a month later at the Olympics). And yet you remain unable or unwilling to ingest a low-dose chill pill.

I often wonder how much of what we consider greatness is authentic, and how much is rooted in the trappings of what we consider greatness past. It happens in the arts as much as in athletics. Michael Jordan probably would have been just as accomplished if he never punched a teammate in the head. Elliott Smith would have (I bet) maintained his gifts for melody and poetry even if he’d found an effective treatment for his depression. When you win a championship, it’s okay to stop and smell the roses instead of using their thorns as a teaching tool to illustrate the importance of unexpected and aggressive defense.

Maybe this is just my way of letting myself off the hook for uneven professional output. How great is greatness anyway, if that’s what it requires? Sour grapes. But I also think you play like you practice. And a career of unremitting discipline prepares you for a life of constant vigilance. And you deserve better, Coach. You deserve balance. You deserve rest. Even killer whales need to come up for air.