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Joe Mazzulla Doesn’t Like Paul George Reminding Him How Paul George Torched the Celtics in the Playoffs
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m amped about the Sixers’ new-look roster this season. LeBron James. Jaylen Brown. Et cetera. This is going to be sick. I’m very excited. No doubt.
But I must admit, from time to time, I still find myself thinking about the thrill of last season’s first round win over the Celtics. It was so damn good. It was special. It was important. Remember all that good stuff? When the Sixers fell behind 3-1, then stormed all the way back to win the series in grittiest stretch of Philadelphia basketball of my lifetime?
Remember how Joel Embiid played out of his mind for four games just a couple weeks removed from his appendix exploding?
Remember Tyrese Maxey going full superstar mode, somehow playing better as the series went along, and capping it off with a 30-point, 11-rebound masterclass in Game 7?
Remember Paul George suddenly looking like 2018-on-the-Thunder/third-in-MVP-voting Paul George, giving Jaylen Brown bucket after bucket, and pretty much breaking the brain of Joe Mazzulla and the Celtics defense?
Paul George remembers that last one. And it looks like Joe Mazzulla wishes he didn’t:
This look from Joe is killing me lmao pic.twitter.com/zqVfmShsI1
— Pull up shoot (@NElGHT_) September 15, 2026
“It just felt like I was able to do things, um, you know, and quite frankly it might’ve caught Boston off-guard, um, from an expectations (laughs) — That I could no longer move or, you know, uh — But I was feeling good. I felt, you know, that I was able to do all the things, um, out there to, you know, gain an advantage.”
This is nice. I enjoyed this video very much. Joe Mazz genuinely looked pretty pissed that Paul George brought this up. Look at this guy:
Look at Joe’s face. Look at the forehead lines. The eyebrows up. The calm contemplation in his eyes. This is the look of a man considering whether to put someone in a rear-naked choke. But it didn’t last long. After just a moment, Joe’s anger seemed to turn into a quiet, reflective sadness:
Jiu-jitsu chokeholds now appear to be far from his mind. This is the look of a man haunted by his memories, trapped in a waking nightmare of regret and disbelief:
Dazed, vacant, as if he’s thinking to himself for the millionth time: “How could that have happened? How did I allow it to? How did old-ass Paul George put up 17.4 points, 4 boards, 3 assists, and 1.4 steals in that series? How on earth did a 36-year-old PG shoot 55% from three? I had Jayson Tatum back. I had Jaylen Brown. I had Derrick White and Payton Pritchard and Neemias Queta. I had it all. What went wrong? What could I have done differently? And how long must I think about this? When will this pain end? When will I stop seeing the same thing every time I close my eyes…” —
Poor Joe Mazz. Must be hell knowing you let Paul George do that to you, then having to sit at a press conference next to the perpetrator himself — who’s now on your team. Brutal.
Here’s to hoping the C’s head coach can successfully convince himself that PG’s playoff performance wasn’t an absolute fluke, and that Boston can get that kind of production from him this year. It won’t happen, of course. No shot. Paul George is cooked. But you gotta figure that’d be a nice thing for Mazzulla to believe. He looks like he could use the peace of mind:
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com