Jay King has a good report on the scrimmage in The Athletic:
If Mazzulla was serious (it turned out he was), I recognized severe pain was coming for me — and not just because, at age 38, my knees and back no longer work properly. The Celtics coaching staff is loaded with great players. Sam Cassell, Phil Pressey and Amile Jefferson competed in the NBA. Mazzulla and Da’Sean Butler were two of the best players on a West Virginia team that beat DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall on the way to the NCAA’s Final Four. Tony Dobbins won the defensive player of the year award three times in France’s top professional league. D.J. MacLeay played on a Bucknell team that reached the NCAA Tournament as a 13-seed. You have probably heard of God Shammgod, the former Providence legend. His son, Celtics assistant God Shammgod Jr., played at Division-II Fairmont State. Very much unlike the writers, the coaches stay in great shape, working out the Celtics players and competing against each other in regular pickup games.
We lost 57-4. Yes, 57-4. I’m pretty sure we only crossed half court with the basketball once over the first six minutes of the game — and, on that play, Mazzulla stripped me before I could drive to the basket. I don’t remember whether the coaches scored in transition on the ensuing possession, but they probably did. They scored at will. And when they didn’t score on their first chance, they usually grabbed the offensive rebound and converted on their second opportunity. At some point, after Mazzulla started screaming “3s” to the other coaches, they began hunting nothing but outside shots. Their decision not to hunt for layups and dunks could have helped us. Instead, they just rained down 3-pointers from all across the court.
How did we only score four points? It was probably a miracle we scored that many. The talent gap between the two teams was like the difference between the sun and a 40-watt lightbulb. By applying full-court pressure the whole time, the coaches tried to run up the score as much as they could. When we dribbled, they swarmed us from all directions to poke the ball away. When we passed, their arms seemed to be everywhere. Even when we successfully converted passes, we were usually two or three seconds away from our next turnover. They trapped us, hounded us and bashed us the entire time we were on the court. Though Cassell didn’t play (at 55, he probably wouldn’t want to play that much full-court defense anyway), they put nothing but high-level players on the court. If only one of them had played against us, he would have controlled the entire game. But with all of them on the opposite side, they pummeled us like the Kansas City Chiefs would dismantle 8-year-olds in an Oklahoma drill.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6717670/2025/10/15/joe-mazzulla-celtics-coaches-vs-media-pickup-gameSo Does Zack Cox in the Boston Herald:
On talent, experience and athleticism alone, that group could have sleepwalked its way to victory over a media side that … well, lacked all three of those things. But they didn’t take it easy on the folks who are paid to write and talk about basketball, not play it. (Unfortunately, there were no players-turned-analysts, a la Brian Scalabrine or Eddie House, on hand to level the playing field a bit.)
At Mazzulla’s constant urging, the coaches played with unrelenting intensity, especially on the defensive end. They pressed full-court for the entire game. They trapped. Mazzulla yelled out calls, scrapped for rebounds and celebrated turnovers — and there were so, so many turnovers.
Most of Team Media’s “possessions” lasted about three seconds. How many legitimate scoring chances were there? Maybe 10, tops. Even fewer shots that came remotely close to finding the net. The number of made baskets by media members was easier to recall: a grand total of two. There was a transition layup by Bobby Krivitsky of Hardwood Houdini and a putback by Boston.com’s Khari Thompson. That was all.
If nothing else, it was an extraordinarily up-close look at the hyper-aggressive practice tempo the Celtics have been hyping up since the start of training camp. Thankfully, no reporters came away with Payton Pritchard-esque neck wounds.
At the other end, Mazzulla and his lieutenants easily found mismatches down low and wide-open looks from three without needing to run any sort of offensive system. Shammgod was especially lethal from outside, draining back-to-back 3-pointers at one point that made it 28-0 less than six minutes in. Pressey also buried a few. The 6-foot-9 Jefferson threw down multiple dunks. Mazzulla kept pushing, pushing, pushing.
The lead reached 35 points. Then 40. Then 50.
Finally, against a thoroughly gassed media defense, Shammgod received a pass just inside halfcourt and launched a high-arcing logo three that swished through as time expired.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/10/15/inside-the-celtics-medias-53-point-loss-to-joe-mazzulla-and-his-coaching-staffJohn Karalis podcast about it:
John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal breaks down the hilarious media vs. coaches game, sharing his frustrations and near-elbowing of Joe Mazzulla.
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