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CHARLOTTE — Early in the third quarter of the Celtics’ 119-80 win over the Charlotte Hornets, Joe Mazzulla called a timeout and walked over to Neemias Queta.
Queta had just gotten tangled up with multiple Hornets players while trying to secure a rebound. And, as is often the case, Mazzulla grew frustrated with his big man’s longstanding tendency to foul.
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But this time, instead of reaming him out, Mazzulla chose to embrace him.
“I’m just trying to channel my anger into love,” Mazzulla said afterward.
“Instead of just yelling at him, I gave him a hug.”
It’s no secret that Mazzulla is hard on the Portuguese big man, who began his journey with the Celtics on a two-way contract in 2023 and blossomed into the Celtics’ productive and reliable starting center last season.
Sometimes, Mazzulla’s yelling gets picked up by the TV broadcast. More often than not, his anger is visible from press row.
And, none of that tough love is something that the Celtics head coach denies.
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“I’m hard on Neemi,” Mazzulla said on Friday night. “I’m hard on our bigs. Those guys, the way they need to play for us, there’s a ton of pressure on them. We talk about it all the time — the fives have the toughest job on this team because they got to do a ton on both ends of the floor.”
Mazzulla has frequently discussed how difficult the center position is in the team’s system, particularly as of late. That’s also applied to Mitchell Robinson, who has struggled in his acclimation to the Celtics as he takes on more responsibility in a new system.
Still, Mazzulla wants to make sure that amid his tough coaches style, there’s an understanding that all of it is rooted in love. He visits players in the offseason in order to better understand what makes them tick; this past summer, he joined Queta in Portugal, Mitchell Robinson in Nashville, and Luka Garza in Iowa.
In difficult moments, there’s a relationship that runs deeper than basketball.
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“I appreciate that they allow me to be hard on them, but I also want them to know I appreciate them,” he said. “Just trying to do that for them.”
Last week, it was Payton Pritchard who…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/why-joe-mazzulla-hugged-neemias-064632151.html
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Publish date : 2026-11-07 06:46:00
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