Amick: Joe Mazzulla says it's OK to smile, Celtics + thoughts on Kyrie Irving, Jerry West (2024)

BOSTON — Joe Mazzulla hasn’t smiled much lately.

The 35-year-old Boston Celtics coach is nothing if not serious in these NBA Finals, like a much younger version of Gregg Popovich without the championship resume (not yet, anyway). He answers reporters’ questions with insight and candor but typically does so with an extraordinary amount of stoicism. Doc Rivers, in other words, he is not. And you’ll certainly never mistake him for Mike Brown.

So to hear Jayson Tatum share Mazzulla’s pre-Game 5 message Sunday, when the Celtics forward tried to explain why Boston looked so disheveled in that Game 4 debacle of a defeat in Dallas (122-84), was to marvel at the incongruity of it all.

“Joe did a great job today of reminding us that it’s OK to smile during wars,” Tatum said. “It’s OK to have fun during high-pressure moments. We would love to win tomorrow, more than anything. But if it doesn’t happen, it’s not the end of the world. We have more opportunities. So just setting that (mindset) of ‘Don’t surrender to that idea that we have to win tomorrow.’ We would love to, absolutely. But Game 5 is the biggest game of the season because it’s the next game on the schedule. So (it’s) going with that mindset and just have fun. That’s really what we talked about today. Get back to having fun and being a team and how special we are and the team that got us here.”

It’s a nuanced and counterintuitive motivational approach, one that will be very interesting to revisit after the next game. In the meantime, there’s this bit of breaking news that took place after Mazzulla held a news conference of his own: He cracked a smile when, during a brief interaction on the TD Garden floor, I shared this incredible clip of an MMA fight from the night before.

Mazzulla’s affinity for mixed martial arts is well-chronicled, as he has trained for much of his life and sees all sorts of parallels between the octagon and the hardwood. As our Jay King wrote in mid-April, Mazzulla made it a priority to return to jiu-jitsu training immediately after he was named Boston’s interim coach last season. Before Game 3 Wednesday, Mazzulla discussed his propensity for showing players clips of MMA fights while preaching the importance of remaining focused until the very end.

“There’s a lot of them (that I show),” Mazzulla said then when asked about his MMA motivational technique. “Usually every single fight. But I think it was (UFC) 302. The guy gets hit in the nuts, complains to the ref and complains to the referee and gets distracted, and then he gets choked out the next round. So he lost his focus. You see (the fighter) gets hit in the nuts, looks at the referee, knocks the guy out five seconds later.

“So it’s the approach to what happens to you and how you handle it. The closer you think you are to beating someone, the closer you are to getting your ass kicked.”

That’s exactly what happened to the Celtics in Game 4. But they’re back in Boston now, where there will be 19,000 or so smiling faces if Mazzulla’s message inspires his squad to finish the job in Game 5 and give the Celtics what would be a league-leading 18th title.

“I think we are ready for Game 5,” Celtics forward Jaylen Brown said. “I think that’s the best answer that I got. I think that we’re ready. We’re at home, and we’re looking forward to it.”

Kyrie Irving back in Boston — again

Kyrie Irving’s return to Boston on this grand stage has been fascinating to watch unfold.

On one hand, he has been open and vulnerable in ways that should help Celtics fans have a better understanding of what went wrong when he was with their favorite franchise all those years ago. On the other, as Irving acknowledged Sunday, the way it all went down will likely mean that he’s “on the outs” forever in the minds of many Celtics faithful.

All of this helps explain the mixed reaction to Irving’s use of the word “cult” to describe his old team’s fan base in his latest news conference.

On its own, that’s a word that could certainly have a derogatory meaning. But in the scope of his entire statement, one in which Irving pulled the curtain back even further than before on his Celtics experience, he showed the deference to Boston’s storied history that he admits wasn’t there before.

“Now being older with hindsight looking back, I definitely would have taken time to know the people in the community and talked to some of the champions that have come before me and actually extend myself to them instead of the other way around, expecting them to be there giving me advice because they have been through this,” said Irving, who was traded from Cleveland to Boston in the summer of 2017 and left for Brooklyn in free agency two years later. “They have championship pedigree here. They have shown it for years. They are one of the most winningest franchises in all of sports.

“So you have to show your respect here. I think that’s what I struggled with initially, was figuring out how I’m going to be a great player here while winning championships and also leading a team and selflessly joining the Celtics’ organization, or the cult that they have here.”

Irving’s recent reflections of that chapter have been enlightening, to be sure. Yet after all his struggles in those first two games in Beantown, the only thing that matters now — for basketball purposes, at least — is whether he can finally find a way to have a breakout game in the face of all the animus.

Remembering Jerry West

Jerry West was one of a kind, an NBA titan whose brilliant talent and unapologetic personality were his calling cards during his remarkable run as a player, coach and famed front-office executive. But you likely knew that already, especially if you read the wonderful work from David Aldridge and so many others on West’s lasting legacy after he passed away Wednesday at the age of 86.

Yet as someone who was born three years after his legendary playing career came to an end in 1974 and who started covering the Association full time just months after the Kobe-Shaq Lakers dynasty he built broke up in 2004, the vast majority of my experiences with West came during his time with the Golden State Warriors and LA Clippers. And as our Tim Kawakami so beautifully explained, those phone calls with West would make you feel like you were “tapping into the NBA secret mainframe.”

One conversation, in particular, will always stand out above the rest. This talk was nothing like all the others, as it didn’t focus on the latest NBA happenings, West’s own team or the endless stream of intel that would always come his way. It was Jan. 26, 2020, just hours removed from the devastating news that Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif.

West, who famously traded for Bryant on draft night in 1996 after pegging him as a bona fide star, had said for years that their relationship was more father-son than GM-player. On an awful day like this, when the job sometimes compels you to make calls that could be seen as callous, you can’t ask for much more than the 10 minutes West decided to share.

He described the loss as “indescribable,” with his voice straining at different points, and reflected on the incredible journey they’d embarked on together. And then, when I thanked him for the time and tried to let him get back to his family, he informed me there was one more topic to discuss: a behind-the-scenes story on his Clippers that Jovan Buha and me had published three days before.

The emotional pivot this mountain of a man made was nothing short of incredible.

“Well, Sam, I want to say something derogatory to you,” West began.

For the next 30 seconds, he made it profanely clear he disagreed with our characterization of the Clippers culture at that time.

“You’re better than that,” he said — twice.

Once West spoke his piece, and after my stunned response of “OK, Jerry” and the wise choice to wave the white flag, he was cordial again.

“That’s what I wanted to say,” he said at the end. “Take care.”

West was as layered and as complicated a person as you’ll ever find, but it was that direct and unfiltered nature that people within the league knew so well and appreciated so much. (Most of the time, anyway.) His feedback might sting a little, and you might not always agree, but you always wanted to hear it. Mazzulla, who played for five years at the same West Virginia school where Jerry’s legend began to grow nearly a half century before, told two similar stories while discussing his passing last week.

“My junior year in college, I wasn’t living up to anyone’s standards, and I get a call and it’s Jerry,” said Mazzulla, who was teammates with Jerry’s son, Jonnie, at West Virginia from 2007 to 2011. “A lot of (expletives), but he essentially told me that I was an F-up and was ruining an opportunity to be great at something and just let me have it for like 10, 15 minutes. I thought it was one of the most impactful phone calls that I had, really, in my life.

“I stayed at his house once, and overslept, for a UCLA open gym. I went down for breakfast and got another ass chewing because I wasn’t being competitive enough. The thing I remember about him is that he had a tough way of showing that he loved you. But he was super, super, competitive, and he really, really cared about you. And he showed it in a way that kind of spoke to my language.”

Adam Silver can relate as much as anyone. Whether it was a reporter, a young player who wasn’t fulfilling his promise or the commissioner of the league that chose West to be The Logo in 1969, West would be heard and felt in a way you would never forget. Silver discussed West at length with a small group of reporters Thursday in Dallas, where he reflected on their relationship that began more than three decades before. His perspective, while somewhat lengthy, is published in full below because Silver told his tales about West so well.

Rest in peace, Jerry, and condolences to wife, Karen, sons Ryan and Jonnie, and all of the West family.

Adam Silver on Jerry West:

“You know, so much has been said in the last couple of days about how competitive Jerry was, and there’s no doubt he was a fierce competitor and one of the most passionate people I ever knew. … My relationship with him began when I first joined the league, roughly 32 years ago. And I learned a lot from him, in that he always paid a lot of attention to everyone in the room, including the people like me, when I started, where I was an assistant to (the late) David Stern. But I was literally sitting in the back of the room, and he would be one of the few people to take note of me and want to know what my background was and quickly learned my name.

“He was a very caring individual. He could be very difficult with people, I think, because — and all of you probably had this experience with him — but he could be extraordinarily direct. But I think that honesty, you always knew you were getting his unfiltered view, so it became particularly meaningful because you knew he wasn’t going to BS you.

“And as my career developed in the league, and then went on to be deputy commissioner and commissioner, if something was happening in the league office or something that I was in charge of, for example, back in my days running NBA Entertainment, he wouldn’t hesitate to make that very clear to me. And it was largely, I would say, it was more often Jerry calling me than me calling him, only because I never wanted to bother him, especially in my junior years. I was so respectful of him.

“But he would call, and whether from my NBA Entertainment days when he thought a feature that we were producing didn’t put the game in the right light, or a particular player in the right light, or was fiercely protective of his own players or his own team, he would let you know.

“As I advanced in the league … he would often call me just to give me his point of view of the rules or what was happening in the game. I trusted Jerry. He was always pretty much always associated with one club or another, whether it was the Lakers, Memphis or the Clippers, but I believed he would park whatever his self interest was in that club and say, ‘Even though this may benefit my team, or it might hurt my team, this is what I think you should be doing as your focus turns to the rules evolving in the game, the style of play, the way it was covered,’ and I really enjoyed those conversations.

“Again, he could be extraordinarily direct, but I always felt it was done with love and passion. Even going back many years, when he was still very engaged day to day, full-time and running teams, he would always begin by saying something self effacing, like, ‘Oh, well I’m just an older guy now and the league’s about the future.’ But he was right on every issue.

“He always had a great network of people he spoke to. I knew that, even though I appreciated him taking the time to talk to me, there were lots of others that he talked to, who talked to him. He had great relationships with the media. I mean, he was a fount of information and knowledge, and he always seemed to know what was really going on. I appreciated that relationship and will really miss him.”

(Top photo of Jayson Tatum: Adam Glanzman / Getty Images)