The Boston Celtics made a deeper playoff run last year under Ime Udoka than they did this season under Joe Mazzulla, but Danny Ainge thinks his former team is better off with its new head coach.
Ainge, who served as director of basketball operations with the Celtics from 2003-2021, shared some of his thoughts on the team with Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe this week. Ainge flat-out said he believes Mazzulla is a better head coach than Udoka, who has since been hired as head coach of the Houston Rockets.
“This team found joy. They were inconsistent, but they were rooting for each other. They were all defending Joe in the media,” Ainge told Shaughnessy. “You see Joe’s toughness and stubbornness. He’s a relentless worker. He has a passion to learn. Joe is a leader, and I think this was a difficult situation with the high expectations the team had coming in. I don’t think there’s anybody there that doesn’t believe that Joe is better than Ime (Udoka) as a coach.”
Ainge admitted his opinion is biased. He is the one who hired Mazzulla to be an assistant coach with the Celtics several years. Brad Stevens, another Ainge hire, named Udoka head coach in 2021 after Stevens transitioned to Ainge’s former role in Boston’s front office.
Ainge is now a top executive with the Utah Jazz. As Brian Robb of MassLive.com notes, Mazzulla was a finalist for the Jazz head-coach job last year before Ainge hired ex-Celtics assistant Will Hardy. Ainge wanted to bring Mazzulla to Utah as an assistant, but Boston blocked the move.
Mazzulla’s inexperience showed on many occasions during his first season at the helm, but the 34-year-old was unexpectedly thrust into a head-coaching role after Udoka was suspended and then fired for his involvement in scandal. The Celtics played hard enough for Mazzulla that they came back from a 3-0 deficit in the Eastern Conference Finals to force a Game 7, though they were blown out by the Miami Heat at home. Still, you can see why Ainge and others feel strongly that Mazzulla is deserving of his position.
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