I Love This....
Oct 17, 2026
AI Generated·May contain errors
Video Summary
AI GeneratedDuring a preseason game against the Charlotte Hornets, Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla gave veteran player Mike Conley the responsibility of managing player substitutions. This unique experiment served as a learning experience for both the coach and the player, offering Conley a new perspective on the complexities of sideline management and coaching.
I love this as the Boston Celtics did something very interesting
in their last preseason game
against the Charlotte Hornets where Joe Mazzulla decided
to implement something very fun and a
learning experience for himself during this game.
What happened during this game? Well,
I'm going to let you guys know about it here
on Celtics Digest. Hello, everybody,
Welcome back to another video
I am your host, Patrick Billings,
and talking Boston Celtics basketball, we're talking about
something that happened in preseason that includes Joe Mazzulla
and Mike Conley, where
Joe Mazzulla gave the reins to Mike Conley
to make some subbing for the Boston Celtics
during this team,
which is something that only Joe Mazzulla will probably do out of
any other head coach in the NBA
but he said that it was a learning experience for not only Mike
Conley but for himself but before we get
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and guys let's get into this one as it's very interesting
and a very Joe Mazzulla type of thing
to go down as we look at this here by Calshi Hoops
as it says that Mike Conley said the Celtics head
coach Joe Mazzulla put him in charge
of Boston substitutions for their preseason game up against
the Hornets and the Athletic did
a nice little piece talking about all of this and this is a
game where the Boston Celtics won 114 to 93 against
the Charlotte Hornets and Conley could
be seen pointing to teammates
when it was time for them to check into the game and he said had
coach Joe Mazzulla put him in charge
of Boston's substitutions for the contest and it goes on to
say that in quote Joe approached me before the game
and said what would you think about doing
the rotations tonight and Conley said well I
was like I'll do it whatever I told him I had never
done that before and it was cool for me
to experience that and though the Celtics played
their expected regulars Conley didn't appear in the game
and set to enter his 20th season the 39
year old saw the game from a new perspective participating
in such an exercise for the first
time he didn't need long to gain greater appreciation
for some of what coaches go
through on the sidelines even with the help
of staff to map out a rotation pre-game he ran into
several circumstances that required adjustments
or near adjustments and he said that there was one
thing that stood out obviously the first thing
that he ran into was Derek White picking up his
second foul two minutes and five seconds into the game
and he needed to choose whether to stick with
the plan rotation or throw it away
to ensure Derek White would avoid further foul trouble
he said that kind of blew up the whole cheat sheet
and Conley goes on to say that I was like oh
no now I have to make a sub
but instead Conley settled for a conversation with White to emphasize
that the guard needed to steer clear of his third foul
which ended up leading to him telling him you
have two fouls you cannot foul coach
is trusting me right now I'm gonna leave you in as White
rewarded the faith avoiding his third foul
and he was able to sub in Peyton Pritchard a minute later
without leaving the Celtics rotation in bad shape
and I think this is a great learning experience
not only for Joe Mazzulla, but for Mike Conley.
As Mike Conley, obviously, there's not many people in the NBA
that have been able to get to their 20th season,
and his role isn't necessarily to go out there
and actually make an impact on the offensive-defensive end.
His impact is to be that locker room guy,
someone that's going to help these guys stick together
and just really be the glue that keeps everybody together, honestly.
We've seen that with many other veterans in the NBA.
and it works out very well for them.
And I think for a team like this Boston Celtics team,
it's going to help them a lot.
And I think on the other end of things, for Joe Mazzulla,
just, you know, somebody who's played for so long,
they've seen so many different things.
And it couldn't be anyone else better
to ask him about things in the NBA,
what's going on, what he personally sees on the court.
And going into later with what Mike Conley encountered,
excuse me, with other predicaments,
when he said he picked Joe Mazzulla's brain
on how to approach them he said it's a lot harder
than you think sometimes Conley said you're looking down
and you're trying to follow strict
regimen but then you look up and a guy's winded
or a guy maybe made four or five buckets in a row
and it's like I don't want to sub him out yet it's just
a feeling out the game so I got to sit
next to Joe and he walked me through some things
just things like I wouldn't take anybody out right
now this five is rolling
so it's just really learning the mindset of coaching and what what
it's kind of what it's like kind of being
in control of that as keeps on going to talk about
you know the relationship with Joe and himself
and saying from day one uh he's kind of been a
guy that's empowered everybody around him i knew
when he texted me today he said hey can you come
to my office before you get started working out
and stuff I knew he was going to have me do
something I don't know if I'm going to be coaching
if I'm going to just be doing anything so he
definitely keeps us all engaged I think
the relationship just continues to build because
of that and that's something you absolutely love
to see is Joe Mazzulla trying to find ways to keep
this group together and make their mindset stay
on straight I think if you guys had seen some of
reports of Joe Mazzulla talking about the team had planned
to go on a golf trip but it was pouring
rain all weekend and he said if you got you guys need
to go and golf you need to still do that keep
that same energy you had the whole time
and Mike Conley obviously a part of those summer workouts
as well with a bunch of other players just really trying
to get that connection and this also helps
with that connection that's going to help this team way down the line
and moving on with this
article as well as Conley said that while he
and Mazzulla sat together on the bench throughout the
second half they spoke not just about rotation
but also deeper basketball topics and how they
viewed the game with the Celtics ahead
of the double digits during the fourth quarter he said
Mazzulla brought up how well the players
were functioning despite using minimal structure
compared with what the staff would use
in a regular season game recalled Conley he was like
we haven't called a play we haven't drawn up
anything we haven't gone over anything on the
scout and just look it can be done guys can work it out themselves
and if we can get this kind of
connectivity going forward it makes everybody's job easier
and just moving on with Mike Conley
and obviously all these things obviously we won't
go through every game without a scout or without
plays but it just kind of seeing the game
in a different perspective his perspective and what
kind of keeps him going different defensive plays different possessions
and he flags on as it's one
of my favorites right there and that's why and he
and he was kind of explaining to me so that was
cool to kind of get in on his mind
and he kind of just keeps going on about how good of an experience
this was for Joe Mazzulla to do that and some
of the players absolutely loved it too talk about
Sam Hauser telling him that he'd be one hell
of a coach as he played with nearby with Conley was
discussing whether he would eventually want
to enter into the profession and he kind of just
went back at him jokingly saying yeah I know I would thanks
but he's not sure whether he will
eventually follow that career path
and going on to say it's harder than people think and honestly
he wants to stay in the game he doesn't know
if he'd go right into it or work his way up to it
but I'm sure that Mike Conley would
do a fantastic job especially being surrounded by the group that
he is with Joe Mazzulla and all
these guys championship coaching they know what type of
mentality you have to have to play winning basketball
and Mike Conley wants to be a part
of that I think him being
in his 20th year right now he's doing everything possible to make sure
that this team gets to the spots where they want
to be I think that this is really going to help
them down the line especially
when it comes to chasing a championship because this team I can
guarantee you is going to be very exciting this season
and I want to know what you guys think
about all of this with this move
with Mike Conley helping out Joe Mazzulla in this preseason game I
know it's preseason but a lot of these things can help down
the line especially with the veterans
seeing it from the coach's view
and really picking up on some things that maybe Joe Mazzulla misses
during a game and maybe give him a different view
so you guys let me know down in the comments below
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