Joe Mazzulla named NBA Coach of the Year after Celtics overcame Jayson Tatum injury, Kristaps Porzingis trade

After multiple seasons near the top of the Eastern Conference, Joe Mazzulla’s Boston Celtics faced a potentially devastating reality last offseason. With Jayson Tatum out for an extended period due to a torn Achilles and the team up against the salary cap, there was some thought the Celtics should treat the 2025-26 NBA season as a rebuilding year.

But that term doesn’t appear to be a part of Mazzulla’s vocabulary. Despite trading away Kristaps Porzingis and getting just 16 games out of Tatum, Mazzulla led the team to a 56-26 record this season, earning the Celtics the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.

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That performance also earned Mazzulla the NBA Coach of the Year award on Tuesday.

Mazzulla beat out finalists J.B. Bickerstaff and Mitch Johnson for the award, which is the first of Mazzulla’s career. He was revealed as the winner on NBC’s pregame showed ahead of Game 5 of the Western Conference finals.

Mazzulla credits coaching staff for success

Mazzulla deferred to the Boston Celtics coaching staff and his team in an interview with NBC after the award was announced.

“There’s so much that goes into winning one game,” Mazzulla said. “It starts with the players, but it goes to our staff. I feel bad that they’re not here, but forever indebted to the guys that we have that give up their time with their families to give us a chance to win every day. …

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“I truly want to thank my staff. I love those guys.”

Despite Mazzulla’s excellence — he has a .726 regular-season winning percentage in four years as a head coach — he had never finished higher than third in the Coach of the Year voting coming into Tuesday. After an excellent first season with the team, in which the Celtics went 57-25, Mazzulla lost out on the award to Mike Brown. Mazzulla finished third in the voting that season, also being beaten out by Mark Daigneault.

Mazzulla also got consideration for the award after the 2023-24 NBA season, when the Celtics went 64-18 in the regular season, but finished fourth in the voting. Daigneault won the award that year.

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/breaking-news/article/joe-mazzulla-named-nba-coach-of-the-year-after-celtics-overcame-jayson-tatum-injury-kristaps-porzingis-trade-233801914.html

Author : Chris Cwik

Publish date : 2026-05-26 23:38:00

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