With how badly the Boston Celtics underwhelmed in the 2026 NBA Playoffs, the blame game will be passed around from now until... maybe next year's playoffs? The one who's gotten the biggest slice of the flak pie has been Joe Mazzulla. Deserved or not, it's about to get even more awkward because Mazzulla is on track to win the NBA's Coach of the Year award.
The Boston Globe's Adam Himmelsbach confirmed that even after Mazzulla made infamous Celtics history, he will retain his job. He also revealed that Mazzulla is expected to receive Coach of the Year in the coming week.
When @AdamHimmelsbach speaks, you listen https://t.co/wu99BIvH9r pic.twitter.com/SoZGPeDWZc
— Dan Greenberg (@StoolGreenie) May 5, 2026
Great, because that's exactly what the Celtics need right now. Another reminder of how everything blew up in their face after they had one of the most exciting seasons with what was working against them.
It doesn't take away from the fact that Mazzulla absolutely deserved the award for how Boston remained one of the best teams in the East despite the Celtics losing so much of their championship core and missing Tatum until March.
But this is reminiscent of when Dwane Casey won the award in 2018 directly after LeBron James straight-up tore apart Casey's Toronto Raptors. Or like when Dirk Nowitzki won MVP just after he and the Dallas Mavericks got embarrassed by the Golden State Warriors back in 2007.
It just adds salt on the wound, and there will be a massive elephant in the room if and when he accepts it.
Even worse, Mazzulla criticized the award itself...
Last month, Mazzulla was asked about the prospect of winning the award, and he admitted that he was not a fan. If you thought things were going to be awkward before, knowing that will make said awkwardness even worse.
Mazzulla being on track to win an award that he went on public record openly criticizing is the living embodiment of the classic saying, "when it rains, it pours." Boston's current outlook has looked about as bad as they could have possibly dreaded, so seeing anyone get rewarded after the objective failure of the postseason should make Celtics fan want to slam their head against the wall.
It's hard to think of a time when the Celtics were as "down bad" as they are right now. 2019 was definitely a dark time, when the eccentric Kyrie Irving submarined what should have been an amazing season. The key difference was that by the time the horror was over, everyone already knew that team was a ticking time bomb.
This feels different. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Boston was supposed to build on this, but they didn't, and Mazzulla winning the award is the cherry on top of the crap sundae they fed everyone.