Shams: Joe Mazzulla Unlikely to Be Fired by Celtics; Coaching Staff to Be Bolstered

Despite a difficult end to his first season as head coach, Joe Mazzulla doesn't appear to be in danger of losing his job with the Boston Celtics.

On FanDuel TV, Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium said the Celtics will likely use the offseason to bring in more veteran assistants who can help take some of the pressure off the young coach.

When the Celtics went down 3-0 to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals, ESPN's Brian Windhorst suggested Mazzulla could be fired.

The Celtics did turn things around with three consecutive wins against the Heat to force a Game 7. They were unable to finish off the comeback with a 103-84 loss at TD Garden on Monday night.

This postseason did highlight some of the flaws for Mazzulla at this early stage of his head coaching career. There were questions about his timeout usage during the regular season, but they got more pronounced in the playoffs.

Even though someone is usually made to be a scapegoat for postseason failures, Mazzulla isn't deserving of all the blame for what happened. Jaylen Brown went 7-of-43 from three-point range against the Heat. Jayson Tatum injured his ankle early in Game 7 and scored just 14 points on 5-of-13 shooting.

Mazzulla was preparing for training camp as an assistant coach when he was named interim head coach on Sept. 22 after Ime Udoka was suspended for multiple violations of team policies.

Boston took the interim tag off Mazzulla and gave him a contract extension on Feb. 17. He went 57-25 during the regular season in his first year leading the team.

There's certainly a lot of things for Mazzulla to improve upon going forward, but he was also the youngest head coach in the league this season at 34 years old.