Over the All-Star break, Joe Mazzulla traveled across the pond to visit Manchester City Football Club. By doing so, he was embracing his love for the game of soccer and getting the opportunity to meet and likely learn from a head coach that many view as the best in the world. It’s hard to argue with that assumption. Pep Guardiola has achieved success wherever he’s gone.
“Pep, his style, it’s like that same Barcelona style, getting everybody involved, getting everybody touching the ball,” Al Horford told The Athletic’s Jared Weiss. “I feel like every couple games, Joe’s showing clips to us of possessions where everybody’s touching it and how the ball has energy. When the ball is moving and everybody’s touching it, something good is happening. That’s when we’re playing at our best.”
Guardiola rose to prominence with Barcelona. His Tiki-Taka playing style revolutionized how coaches approached the game. When he left Spain and headed for Germany with Bayern Munich, Guardiola adapted his playing style. The relentless passing remained, but the system was more direct. It was German “football” with a Spanish flair.
Almost as soon as Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan purchased Man City, the links with Guardiola began to emerge in European sports media. It took some time. First, they had Mark Hughes, then Roberto Mancini came in and Manuel Pellegrini was next in line. Each of those managers helped shape City, but Guardiola’s arrival took them to the summit.
While all of this was happening in the northeast of England, the Boston Celtics were taking steps toward success in the Eastern Conference. They were drafting future All-Stars. They were building continuity and familiarity. Brad Stevens, Ime Udoka and Joe Mazzulla have all presided over a similar championship-level team. The parts have changed, but the core, for the most part, has remained the same.
Yet, Mazzulla’s love for soccer and his vision for how the sports overlap has seen the Celtics become an unpredictable machine this season.
“Soccer and basketball, when I watch it, it’s kind of the same sport from that tactical standpoint of how do you create advantages?” Mazzulla told Weiss. “How do you create two-on-ones? How do you recognize weaknesses in the defense and how do you take advantage of angles?”
Like Guardiola, Mazzulla came into a team already knocking on the door of greatness and began elevating their processes. He wanted unpredictability. He wanted a willingness to embrace the uncomfortable and to thrive in the margins of the unknown. Those kinds of changes don’t happen overnight.
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“One of Mazzulla’s favorite drills at practice consists of two five-man lineups walking onto the court with no offense/defense assignment,” Weiss detailed in his article. “Then he throws the ball to one group and everyone has to jump into the right play call and defensive coverage immediately.”
For Mazzulla, the willingness to be fluid is among his favorite parts of being a head coach.
“That’s probably my favorite part about the job, is looking at it from an artistic perspective,” Mazzulla said. “(It’s) giving the guys a framework to be like, there’s so many possibilities here. Let’s explore them.”
Soccer and basketball are two different sports. Yet, from a fundamental standpoint, Mazzulla sees the crossover in principles. He sees the flow of the game, the constant transition from attack to defense. He sees the tactical battle unfolding on the fly. And he understands that both sports rely on angles, with the technical players often creating the most consistent advantages.
Finding ways to bring some of Guardiola’s principles to the Celtics was clearly an important part of Mazzulla’s agenda. He had his team watching City games during practice. Pointing out the finer details of how certain transitional phases could translate to the NBA game. He was building a philosophy within his team, but he was doing it his way: unconventionally and unapologetically.
Part of that philosophy is Mazzulla’s timeout strategy. That’s something he’s faced a barrage of questions about over his first 18 months as the Celtics head coach. Unlike soccer, you can call timeouts in basketball. You can draw up a play and position your team to change the flow of the game. Mazzulla, however, prefers his team to problem solve. He wants them to show character. He wants them to overcome adversity without needing their hand held.
“That’s where my timeout philosophy started. I think soccer coaches are the best teachers, because once the game starts, you can’t call a timeout,” Mazzulla said. “The ability to create a system where your guys can operate and function based on the ebbs and flows of the game and how the game is going is really important. You have to empower your players to understand exactly how the game’s going and how quickly you can self-correct to either stop a run or create your own run.”
It makes sense, then, that Mazzulla would make the trip to Manchester. Not only does he get to meet one of the greatest coaches in the world, but he also gets to watch practice to see how the best team in their sport goes about match preparation and how they approach their tactical meetings.
Last season, City became the first English team since Manchester United in 1999 to win the treble — that’s three major trophies in one season: The Premier League, the European Champions League, and the FA Cup. That’s not an easy feat.
“You get an environment of what greatness is like and I’d say they’re pretty close to greatness with what they’ve done over the last nine years and what he’s done at Barcelona,” said Mazzulla. “It’s just good to be around that, study that, learn from it.”
Mazzulla and the Celtics are on the verge of achieving greatness themselves. It’s been 16 years since Boston last hoisted a championship banner in the TD Garden. There have been some near misses in recent times, but there’s always been one step that was a little too high. Now, with some of Guardiola’s principles sprinkled into the Celtics system, Boston looks poised to finally take that last step and enshrine itself in history.
However, if the Celtics are going to finally get to the mountaintop, they need to do things a little bit differently. They need to think outside of the box. Mazzulla has ensured his team is prepared for that task. The results are there for everyone to see. With the playoffs rapidly approaching, Celtics fans will be hoping that a quick trip across the pond saw Mazzulla return with some new stardust he can sprinkle throughout his team.
If the Celtics win a championship this season, we may see some Man City shirts being worn around a city that’s traditionally an extension of Liverpool Football Club (due to the presence of FSG.) Still, if that’s what it takes, it’s unlikely anyone in Boston will be complaining.
