Derrick White Drops Another Joe Mazzulla Gem, This Time About Being Mad at the Sun

Add another quote to the Mazzulla list, this time about the weather

Dec 19, 2025; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla talks with guard Derrick White (9) from the sideline as they take on the Miami Heat at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-Imagn Images | David Butler II-Imagn Images

Everyone loves a Joe Mazzulla quote. He’s had some classics, like when he was on my Locked On Celtics podcast during the 2024 offseason talking about how hard the upcoming season would be and saying “People are gonna say the targets on our back but I hope it’s right on our forehead between our eyes … I hope I can see the red dot”

Boston Celtics players have their favorites, too. Like Derrick White telling the story about congratulating Mazzulla on a Coach of the Month award and Joe shooting back “nobody cares.” The moment stuck with White so much that he had a “nobody cares” shirt made and wore it to the championship parade. 

White dropped another Mazzulla gem during his appearance on FanDuel TV’s “Run It Back.” 

“Every day, it's something with him,” White said. “It's been a lot of fun to kind of learn from him, and see, like, different, ways he thinks. Like, he's upset when it's sunny outside.”

If there's anything that tracks with Mazzulla’s mentality, it’s him being angry at the sun. Mazzulla hates when things are going great.

“We were in LA, and it was raining, and I saw him in the hallway,” White explained. “He was like ‘look at this weather. Everybody out here is pissed and this is amazing. I’m going to go for a walk.’”

This conjures amazing visual of a smiling Mazzulla walking around the streets of Los Angeles getting soaked and loving it because everyone around him is miserable. 

I can’t begin to explain the psychology behind that, but I can tell you Mazzulla will probably be at least a little upset about White constantly dropping these little nuggets. 

“He’s like ‘all the stories that the media hears about me is, like, people telling it,” White said. “‘I don’t go out there and do all this stuff.’ And so he’s blaming me, he’s blaming other people for putting all these stories out on him.” 

That's fair. Half the Mazzulla stories come from players talking to the media or on their own podcasts. White does it in good fun, probably to bust Mazzulla’s chops because that's the relationship they have. Mazzulla and White famously went to a WWE event a couple of months ago and it included Mazzulla play fighting with White when the camera panned to them. 

“He's like, ‘All right, we got to kind of like do a little something, like, how's it gonna go?’” White said, explaining that Mazzulla was already plotting the playful attack, knowing the camera was going to be on them. “He's like, ‘next time we go out there, we're gonna have to get in the ring and actually have a fight or something.’”

This is reminiscent of Tatum’s story of getting a tech and Mazzulla saying to him "I would much rather you just come punch me. I wanna fight. I would love to fight."

In the end, Mazzulla’s madness is endearing to the players because it’s genuine. They mostly seem to laugh at it at this point, because they understand Mazzulla’s language. 

“I love playing for him,” White said. “He has a great basketball mind. He thinks the game like no one I've really been around.”