For a long time now, Boston fans have had a love-hate relationship with Bill Simmons. On the one hand, he got his start as “the Boston Sports Guy”; he’s clearly a true, passionate fan of the local teams, and he has become a national media mouthpiece on behalf of Boston and the Celtics, standing up to New York, Los Angeles, and the other sports media monstrosities.
But on the other hand, Simmons has been living in LA for ages and has lost touch with the pulse of the fanbase, often misrepresenting the actual sentiment and completely missing the point.
Still, there has never been any question about his diehard fandom and that he genuinely and passionately cares about the Boston teams, especially the Celtics. So, it shouldn’t have come as a shock when he absolutely nailed the current team’s dynamic.
On the Sunday night, post regular season finale episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast, he and Zach Lowe were lamenting about the Celtics’ incredible, shorthanded victory over the Magic. While discussing the performance by the stay-ready crew, Simmons stumbled into a poetic way to describe the team, saying:
“The reality is, everyone’s like is this Jaylen’s team, or is it Jayson’s team? Whose team is it? It’s Mazzulla’s team.”
Simmons has his finger on the pulse for a change
This is probably one of the smartest things Simmons has said in a while, and he’s totally on the ball. Everyone is so busy debating Brown vs. Tatum, but the reality of the situation is that Joe has taken over and left his imprint on this team, and everything they do, on and off the court, is a reflection of Mazzulla.
Joe has grown so much as a coach and become so much more confident and comfortable, and now, he has really started to instill his values and mentality into the Celtics. The NBA is a players' league, and a star-driven league at that, but Boston is extremely lucky.
Both of the Jays are all about winning at the highest level. They mean business. They don’t care about nonsensical discourse about “whose team it is”, which player is the “alpha”, how they fit together, and other ridiculous conversations.
They want to play basketball and win championships. They’ve found a coach who has the same goals and has molded this entire organization to the way he likes, and it can be seen in every facet of the team from top to bottom.
The Celtics are extremely fortunate with the structure of the franchise; from the new ownership group led by Bill Chisholm, Brad Stevens at the helm of the front office, Tatum and Brown leading the roster, and Mazzulla, who has become the face of the most storied franchise in sports.
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