Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said the decision to remove the interim tag from coach Joe Mazzulla and give him the job on a permanent basis was to remove any potential "cloud of uncertainty" from hanging over him for the rest of the regular season and playoffs.
"I think one of the things that's pretty obvious and evident about Joe is he's a really good coach, and he's also just an outstanding leader," Stevens said in a conference call late Thursday afternoon. "I think he's done a great job, right from the get-go of, again, kind of like I said, galvanizing a locker room around a mission.
"As far as the timing of it, from the standpoint of this is, the one thing, they've obviously done a great job, they've obviously put themselves in position to compete for the things we want to ultimately compete for thus far, and I want to give them the opportunity to finish the regular season strong, hopefully the postseason strong and not be in a cloud of uncertainty. I think that they certainly have earned that, and, Joe specifically, has just done a great job."
Mazzulla, 34, was named the team's interim coach in September -- just days before the start of training camp -- after Ime Udoka was suspended by the team for the 2022-23 season for multiple violations of team rules.
Mazzulla has since led Boston to the NBA's best record, 42-17, entering the All-Star break, and he will be coaching Team Giannis this weekend in the All-Star Game in Salt Lake City.
When told of Stevens' reasoning for giving him the job on a permanent basis, Mazzulla said he appreciated it, but that he has never felt like he lacked support from Stevens or the rest of the organization.
"Ever since I've been here, even as an assistant, I've always felt their support, I've always felt their communication, I've always felt their honesty," said Mazzulla, who has been on Boston's coaching staff since Stevens hired him as an assistant in 2019. "So I always knew exactly where I stood. Even though it was an interim position, I knew exactly where I stood. I knew I would get a fair shake, an opportunity. I knew that I was going to be able to do the way that I thought to give you the best chance to be able to be successful because of that. Because of their standard and their communication and how they treated me as an assistant, I just felt comfortable regardless."
Mazzulla has repeatedly cited how much he believes in the bonds within Boston's locker room, something he highlighted last week when asked why the Celtics have been able to consistently pick up wins this season when playing with less than their full complement of players.
Part of the reason he said he was confident in his ability to do the job was that he knew his players would have his back.
"This is one of the best locker rooms I've ever been in," Mazzulla said. "It's very easy to be confident when you have the group of people and the character that we have and the group of players that we have. Because the organization is aligned very well, it's very easy because we're all on the same page that winning is the most important thing. Just very grateful for that."
Boston began the season 18-4, and currently has the NBA's third-best offensive rating and fourth-best defensive rating -- making the Celtics the only team to reside in the top five in both categories. Only Cleveland and Philadelphia are in the top 10.
Thursday's announcement marks the continuation of a rapid ascent up the coaching ladder for Mazzulla, who was an assistant at Division II Fairmont State in West Virginia 10 years ago, before joining Boston's G League affiliate as an assistant in 2016.
He then returned to Fairmont as its head coach for two years before joining Stevens' staff as an assistant in 2019 and remaining as an assistant when Udoka took over when Stevens moved up to the team president role in 2021.
Along the way, he's repeatedly earned Stevens' respect for the way he's approached his work.
"With regard to Joe and now moving forward, I guess if I have the benefit of anything in this role that I'm in now, it's about understanding coaches and hopefully being able to identify and support talented people," Stevens said. "And we have a lot of them and Joe's one of them. And so, for me it was, I know Joe will work his tail off, I know Joe will give everything he has to lead, and I know he gives a damn about everybody in that locker room. Like he really cares. It eats him up when something doesn't go well individually for a guy. It eats him up when he feels like he's let the team down. He's not going to ever come in and say, I wish this person or this person or this person would've done their jobs better. He'll always say the opposite."
The decision to elevate Mazzulla also officially ended Udoka's tenure with the franchise. In his first and only season with the franchise, Udoka helped engineer a midseason turnaround that saw Boston go from being under .500 in late January to finishing second in the East and advancing to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2010.
Stevens, however, declined to go into details about how the two sides ultimately parted ways.
"I'm not really gonna go into all that," he said. "I think at the end of the day -- we said it in our original statement long ago that decision will be made at a later date. So we wanted to make sure we were thorough. We were really focused on our team from that day on, right?
"We were really focused on making sure that we are all able to put our best foot forward. Again, I thought that the players' leadership, staff's leadership and Joe's leadership have all stood out during that time. That's why we made the decision now."
And, by making it, the Celtics can now look forward to the stretch run, one that Boston will attempt to navigate while holding off the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs, as they hope to make it to back-to-back NBA Finals for the first time since the late 1980s.
"It all goes back to the idea of now, going into the playoffs, we're going to be in battles," Stevens said. "It's going to be really hard. The East is terrific, obviously. The West is loaded up. It's going to be really hard to win and the hardest things to do would be coaching, looking behind you and looking over your shoulder. It's about looking forward, and if you're in a Game 7, know that everybody in the organization believes in you and that uncertainty erases.
"Like, you've earned that, and so I thought that was really important. That's a long-winded answer to all of your questions ... but we just believe in him and we believe in all the people around him."