Joe Mazzulla is the Clear Coach of the Year

All right, so let, let's talk for a second about the Celtics.

I want to say right off the bat here that there are a lot of awards out there still up, up in the air, up for grabs.

MVP still up for grabs.

Rookie of the Year, we'll talk about that at the very end up for grabs.

Um, I was looking at this, uh, some of the odds for Coach of the Year.

And look, there's some good names out there.

JB Bickerstaff has done an unbelievable job.

Um, Charles Lee's done a great job, you mentioned in Charlotte.

Mitch Johnson outstanding in San Antonio.

They've been great.

Jordan Ott has turned the Suns, uh, into a potential playoff team this year.

I don't see how anyone can vote for anybody other than Joe Missoula for Coach of the Year.

Like, how do you do that?

Like JB Bickerstaff, I hate that he might go through this two-year stretch not winning Coach of the Year because he led that team to a thirty-win improvement last year and probably should have gotten it last year.

No disrespect to Kenny Atkinson.

Great job in Cleveland, but a 30-win improvement.

From 14 wins to 44 is remarkable.

But the job that Joe Missoula is doing this year is wild.

Like this is a team that I predicted to have like 35 wins.

They've got 5 more, and we're not even, we got 6 weeks to go before the end of the regular season.

He is finding guys, putting them in position to be successful, and they're succeeding.

Name is Kita.

Right there.

Should be top 5 in, in most improved, maybe even win the whole damn thing.

Had an outstanding game, uh, on, on national TV against the 76ers.

I know Joel Embiid wasn't playing, but the guy in the 1st 15 minutes had 16 points and 11 rebounds.

Name is Kita.

What the hell?

Like Sacramento let him go and all of a sudden he played.

He was like a role player last year coming off the bench.

He's starting and doing.

Ridiculous things.

Ron Harper Junior, here you go.

Here's some minutes for you.

Early in the season, Josh Minot is getting play.

Anthony Simons comes in.

No expectations for Anthony Simons.

He can't play defense.

He was serviceable enough defensively for Bazoula to play him heavy minutes, and he got them Nikola Vusovich in, in a trade.

Like this guy just pushes all the right buttons.

This has been, I think, the finest coaching job.

Done this year.

So if you're a voter out there, I know you're a voter and other voters are out there.

I don't know how you can justify voting for anybody else.

We all thought Detroit was going to be good.

Maybe not this good, #1 seed, but we thought they were gonna be good.

We thought San Antonio was going to be good.

I mean not this good, but we thought they were gonna be good.

Phoenix has surprised everybody too, but they're still like the, the 7th seed right now in the Western Conference.

The Celtics are a 40-win team.

In early March.

Who the hell thought that was gonna happen?

Who thought this team was gonna have 40 wins and be the number 2 seed in the Eastern Conference?

If you put money on that, send me your FanDuel or your DraftKings slip that said you have the Celtics over 45 wins this year.

I will happily bow down Genufleck to you and say you are a gambling master.

But if you thought they were going to be this good, You are a genius.

Joe Missoula, Coach of the Year, hands down, no doubt about it.

This is the most animated I may have ever seen you, and I've known you for more than 20 years.

So, so if you're listening in your car, I really would say go home and find on Sports Illustrated's Open floor YouTube page.

We think we put the full podcast up there.

Go find this section of the podcast because you have to visually see Chris Mannix.

His arms are waving.

He's pounding, he's literally pounding.

Khrushchev style is mystifying side of the chair is mystifying.

How are they this good?

Jalen Brown is, is a top five MVP guy right now.

I didn't think he'd take this big a step, but you've got Nami Kita out there.

Their starting lineup against the starting lineup against Philadelphia was wild.

Like, I love Sam Hauser, great shooter.

He started like power forward for this team.

Name is Kita, who's like what, 6'9, 6'10, don't know how tall he is, like gobbling up rebounds like he's young Andre Drummond, who's going.

up against in that game, Joe Missoula.

Every button this man pushes has worked this year.

You're not gonna tell me there's a better coaching job being done than Joe Missoula with the #2 seeded Celtics.

And not only is your voice going like up several decibels, the Boston accent is coming out more because of that.

Look, I first of all, I agree with you.

He has my vote, so you will be relieved, I think, I'm watching all you voters.

I don't, I wanna hear justifications for somebody other than Joe Missoula to, to, to say that.

And I think it doesn't have Victor Wembayama.

It doesn't have, look, I'm not gonna beat on, uh, JB because JB is awesome, but that's, uh, he doesn't have the, the continuity and the star power that even Detroit has at this point.

Look, to me, it is not only such a credit to him, and I've always, you know, you remember the first year he was coach when there was a lot of people, especially a lot of Celtics fans over there who were like, Ah, this guy doesn't know what he's doing.

And I kept saying, no, no, no, he's getting it.

He's getting it.

I am, I back that man 100%.

I've known him since he was in college.

It speaks to how big an impact one person who's in a key role can have on a team.

The coach obviously is in a position to sort of set the tone, set the style.

A lead player, Jalen Brunson, sort of the toughness that he brought to New York in a way that wasn't there before he was there.

Obviously it's been there in the past, but you know what I mean, to that team.

I, I just think it is a great example of when people talk about head coaches and they say, oh, we need a cultural setter, we need a tone setter.

Joe Missoula has done that for a Celtics team that was already good when he got there, right?

They were already good, but he turned them into, we will fight for every inch, every millimeter .

There's no way I'm beating the media team by 60, right?

It wasn't.

Whatever it was, like, like there is no inch we are giving.

We are giving no quarter ever, no matter what the situation is.

We will be there.

We will be tough.

We will stick to the game plan.

We will , you know, they, they obviously the way that they play is very specific like.

I think that his impact on the rest of that team and on someone when they walk in the door off the street, as you say, is really remarkable and something that we have the right to expect from more of these coaches because I think there is an emphasis right now on.

A lot of the basketball sort of, I don't, I like analytics.

I like statistics.

I like knowing what tends to work and what doesn't, but if you fall too into that category, you do forget the emotional side of this game and I think that is a huge part of this game and I think that Joe Missoula knows how to harness guys' competitiveness in a way that just, I mean, it's been exceptional and it's a good reminder.

of what's possible.

Can I just give you a hypothetical?

Like, you, you have my vote.

I know, but like this is, this, this is a hypothetical.

I'm just like because I'm looking at, at some of the lineups Boston's used this year, and it, it's just you became a father for the first time and you weren't this hyped up.

I'm just don't listen to this, son.

Um, the, uh, if I told you that in the preseason, that on March 1st or 2nd, whatever this is, March 1st, uh.

The Celtics would feel the starting lineup of Derrick White, Baylor Shireman, Jalen Brown, Sam Hauser, and Nami Kita, and that they were either going to be 40 and 20 after that or 20-40.

Which would you have guessed?

Oh, I mean, everybody would have guessed 20 and 40, including you.

Yes, of course I would.

I thought they were good.

I thought they were tanking this year.

Oh, that's the clip we need to find when we were doing our like 18th season preview because, you know, people, it gets rough here.

We're, when we're trying to wait for the season to start and we're talking about the East, and I said, what about the Celtics?

Could they sneaky be good in there?

And you were like, no way, they're tanking.

No way.

This is a gap year.

They got control of.

The draft pick.

It's gonna help them.

They got off to too good a start.

Joe Missoula is too good a coach.

Jalen Brown is too good a player and like pressing the right buttons.

Sam Hauser is their starting power forward.

Namikita is their starting center.

Hugo Gonzalez, who looks like he's 16 years old, is out there.

Giving them minutes now.

It's not just like consistent guy, consistent guy.

It's Josh Minott who's no longer with the team, who's giving them minutes early in the season.

Lucas Garza was giving them minutes for a while.

Like they are fine, they're plug and play different guys who are having success.

Derrick White's numbers have not been great, but he has been outstanding in like every different area.

Playmaking, defense, shot blocking, just running that team.

Peyton Pritchard, mixing his roles up, taking a seat on the bench, like this.

This, this team is just astonishing me.

So let me ask you a question though.

Guys like that who are playing above their heads, what happens to them in a playoff situation?

Because that is something that we see sometimes is that there's a drop off because of all the reasons the playoffs are just a completely different game and harder than.

I, I think there'd be a drop off, but I think a lot of these guys have been on the team when they've made deep playoff runs.

Sam Howe has played a lot of minutes in these playoff runs.

Namiskita played minutes, not extended minutes in some of these postseason runs.

Baylor Shimon's at least been around Baylor Shi.

Baylor Shimon run up there playing with a busted thumb on his shooting hand.

Like, I don't, this team is confounding how they are this good.

I do not understand it .

I thought Philadelphia, and I have a bet with, um, some of my guys in Boston over that.

I thought Philadelphia would have a, a better record than the Sixers.

I don't think I'm winning that bet.

I don't think you are not going to win that bet at all.

I mean, I, I think that you said it's confounding.

I don't understand it, those words.

You do understand it because you started this discussion with Joe Missoula.

And look, Jalen Brown also deserves a ton of credit, and both of those guys for different reasons came into this season being like, Yeah, I, I'm not, not like we're not doing this.

We are not tanking.

We are not throwing the season away.

We are not using this as a gap year.

Jalen Brown wanted to prove to people that who the hell is Max Schulga.

I don't even know who that is.

Like, is he 3rd string?

I don't, I don't we're gonna do, we're gonna do Charles Barkley's, who he played for going to Boston this week for multiple games.

Uh, this is, this is something that this is like these guys.

And, and Joe Missoula deserves just a huge amount of credit.

Brad Stevens for tapping Joe Missoula whenever he's like, just go with the more experienced guy, go with somebody that's been around.

Give it to, you know, the former player or whatever.

You knew what he was looking at.

Would you say that Joe personality wise?

In terms of intensity is sort of the, the son of Tom Thibodeaux in that way.

Yeah, in a way, but like only because he came up earlier on, but like discussion, Thibs turns it off, right?

Like you've been around he does, yeah, yeah.

You get in his office, you sit down, he's got a great sense of humor.

He's funny.

He loves gossiping.

He's like, I don't think Joe does.

I don't, and I've been around Joe a little bit, um, off the court in, in more social settings.

He, he is not.

Like, like he is at a press conference, but there's not that ibs-like off switch.

So it's, so who would you, who that intense because for people who just see it on TV who aren't around him during a game or in a press conference right after, I mean, I've had to interview him on the court at a timeout, and I got to tell you, like, give me Popovich because Joe is just so dialed in.

He's not mean or anything.

He's just so dialed in.

And focus that there's just no, I don't know I don't know who else I can comp him to.

It's probably the closest comp, but I even think Joe's brings his brings 24 hour intensity to, to another level.