Joe Mazzulla Confuses Mike Conley, And That's a Good Thing for the Boston Celtics

Mike Conley has been around.

“I was part of the league when [Kevin Garnett] and them guys won, and [Rajon] Rondo and them,” he said at his introductory press conference alongside Paul George.

Conley could probably write a great book about how the league has evolved from his rookie season in 2008 to 2026. A lot has changed since he first broke into the league, most notably how teams have embraced three-point shooting.

The Golden State Warriors led the league with 26.6 attempts per game in 2008, a number that would have been dead-last this past season by nearly four full attempts. The Warriors led the league again in 2026, this time with 44 per game.

Few teams have embraced the three like Joe Mazzulla has during his tenure as Boston Celtics head coach, but you can never accuse Mazzulla of following some kind of trend. In fact, Mazzulla has already made an impression on his new backup guard.

“I thought he was crazy before,” Conley said with a laugh. “He's not. He's not crazy. No, my impressions have been everything that I expected. I think from here, from some of the players who played for him, just from around the league, his ideas, he's not afraid to push the envelope a little bit to try things, to try different schemes and different reactions for players, different ways of getting things across. It's refreshing for me.”

Mazzulla has earned his reputation as one of the league’s most unique coaches, but there's always a method to his madness. Conley is actually a great example of how Mazzulla challenges players to try to help them grow. If anyone in basketball has a right to be set in his ways, it’s Conley. But Mazzulla has already begun working to get Conley to think the game differently.

“You're used to just having coaches kind of be kind of structured in a certain way, and how basketball has always been played,” Conley said. “I get here and I feel like I don't know what I'm doing.”

Mazzulla chimed in at that point, calling that comment a great compliment, which should tell you everything you need to know about Mazzulla. He relishes the ability to shine new light on the game for established veterans like Conley.

This harkens back to Jrue Holiday’s reinvention under Mazzulla. Holiday was obviously a well-established defensive menace who won a championship in Milwaukee. He’s another guard who could have come into Boston and blown off an eccentric coach because he was already successful playing his own way. But Mazzulla found a connection and opened Holiday to a new way of thinking.

“The first time we played Philly, I was guarding Joel [Embiid],” Holiday said on Draymond Green’s podcast in 2024. “Being a roamer, a disrupter, has been so fun to me. It’s been fun because I see the game in a different way now. I see the reason why I’m on this person. Me and Joe talk about this quite a bit, I start to catch what Joe is thinking defensively before he tells me …

“Before I was so locked into hounding the ball, disrupting it … and now, I might be on a non-shooter, the next day I might be on a shooter, I might be on the big … so many different things play into the defense now and I didn't see the game that way.”

Mazzulla’s ability to take long-time veterans and introduce them to a new way of thinking is an incredible skill that not only helps the player grow, but helps him grow as a coach. That's because players of this caliber are geniuses on the court, and any kind of new problem put in front of them leads to interesting solutions. They can reason with Mazzulla and question his reasoning, which makes Mazzulla have to think things through himself. Ultimately, they develop a mutually beneficial relationship that unlocks something in both of them.

If Mazzulla had a chance to interrupt this piece, he’d probably take a moment to say that the only way any of this is possible is for someone like Conley to have an open mind and accept the coaching. Conley is older than Mazzulla, and he was starting 80 games for the Memphis Grizzlies when Mazzulla was playing college ball at West Virginia. There are plenty of players in Conley’s position who would tell Mazzulla to take a hike.

But Conley seems to fully appreciate this moment. It’s rare for someone to get a fresh perspective on the game less than a month from his 39th birthday, so Conley is embracing it.

“There's so much for me to learn about the game, but the way he sees the game is a different lens,” Conley said. “So I think that it's a special thing.”

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