Joe Mazzulla Is Truly An Elite Quote Machine, This Time Comparing The Animal Kingdom To The Celtics Title Defense

Elsa. Getty Images.

Last week, I blogged about the return of Pyscho Joe and how he appeared to be ready for the season after delivering an all time quote about the defending NBA Champion Boston Celtics having a target on their backs heading into the year

It was such a perfect Joe quote and is the exact type of insanity that helps make the Celts so dominant. The best part of course is the fact that Joe was 100000% serious when he said it. There was no schtick at play, this is who Joe has been since the minute he took over the team from that horny weirdo Ime Udoka. It's taken some people a little bit of time to accept it and get used to it, but now that he has the success and the hardware to back it up it's been fun to see the rest of the world realize what many of us have known since the beginning.

Joe is the guy.

Which is why it's no surprise that another quote from this interview is going viral today, and it might be even better than the first

Find me another championship winning coach that not only compares defending their title to the animal kingdom, but is again 10000% serious? You can't. I don't even know if Joe Mazzulla is right when it comes to the strongest animals not defending but rather being aggressive, but I fucking love the mindset I'll tell you that right now. It doesn't even matter to me if it's actually bullshit, the quote is incredible. Not only that, it's exactly how the team has to approach this season. Be the team that punches first, and never let up. It was the blueprint of their 2024 title run and it should be the blueprint of another run this season. To me that's partly what made last season different compared to previous years of coming up just short. 

There was no taking their foot off the gas last year. It was pedal to the medal for a full 48 with haymaker after haymaker on the way to one of the most dominant seasons in NBA history

Advertisement

Honestly, if any other coach put out these quotes, they wouldn't hit the same. I understand I am operating with a heavy heavy dose of bias, but it's also the truth. There's a reason Joe is 1 of 1, and it's because he's a fucking psycho who also happens to have one of the best basketball minds going. A guy who wants to willingly re-tear his MCL like he did this past season just so he can work on his mental toughness. A guy who puts himself through hell in ju-jitsu workouts after bad losses like we saw after the back-to-back losses to ATL in mid-March. 

The best part? Joe's message is clearly getting through to the players. Their collective buy-in since he arrived is hard to ignore, and listening to Tatum this morning talking about his new children's book and the upcoming title defense

I cannot wait for things to get started. Camp opens 2 weeks from today and it honestly cannot get here soon enough.