Joe Mazzulla Explained He Was Just Trying To Convey "Love" When He Screamed For Jayson Tatum To Get Up After His Hard Fall In Game 1

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There were a lot of awesome parts of the Celts' Game 1 win over the Magic the other day. Derrick White going nuclear, Payon Pritchard playing basically a perfect game, Al Horford simply existing, the list goes on and on.

But one of my personal favorite moments is what we saw happen for just a split second following Jayson Tatum's hard fall after KCP's flagrant. 

I've probably watched that clip no fewer than 100,000 times since I put out that tweet. It's not as if we needed any more evidence to conclude that Joe Mazzulla is unequivocally THE GUY, but a clip like this only further confirms it. It's perfect. 

And while a lot of the haters and losers of which there are STILL many want you to believe, this was not Joe Mazzulla suggesting Jayson Tatum is "soft" or whatever bullshit narrative these people seem to come up with. If anything, it showed exactly why the Celtics are who they are. Joe may be completely psychotic, but there's a method to his madness. This is what it takes to be a Champion and defend your title. Mentality is everything.

To me, this showed Joe Mazzulla's belief in Tatum. Reminding him that pain doesn't even exist, to use his mental toughness, and to keep going. You're not dead, so get up and continue contributing to winning. 

You knew in the first media session since that moment, that Joe was going to be asked about it. As you can imagine, in maybe the least surprising development of all time, his answer was also perfect

Again, I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly not be a Joe Mazzulla guy and think he's anything other than the perfect leader of this team. Outside of the basketball stuff that we already know is dominant, this part of his coaching responsibility is equally important. Relationship building, trust, love, having complete buy-in from your players, it ALL goes into what makes someone a championship caliber coach. 

We've seen plenty of extremely talented teams all throughout NBA history never meet their potential. Shit, we just lived through it with the 2018-19 Celtics. The Joe Mazzulla Celtics? They own the most wins in the NBA and the playoffs since he took over. He's won 17 of his last 20 playoff games. They won the title. He's 182-64 (.740) in the regular season and 28-12 (.700) in the postseason for his career. Sure, having a talented roster helps, but so does the coach. Joe came in under insane circumstances and morphed this team (and Jayson Tatum) into a complete wagon. Sorry if this offends, but it's the reality.

Do you think that happened by accident? No. It's partially because of moments like this. Joe's mentality, his connection to his players, all of it.

He's the perfect basketball psycho. A truly unhinged individual who might also be a basketball savant. The best part? He's our basketball psycho.