Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla to Have Surgery After Coaching NBA Finals with Torn Meniscus

It turns out Kristaps Porziņģis wasn’t the only Boston Celtic battling through a leg injury during the NBA Finals.

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters he’ll have to undergo surgery to repair a torn meniscus he originally suffered in March.

“Hey, guess what? I tore my meniscus in March after we lost in Atlanta. … I’m gonna be out a little while. I’ve been working through it since March,” Mazzulla said during a postgame appearance on SportsCenter.

Mazzulla, 35, became the youngest NBA coach to win an NBA Finals since Bill Russell led the Celtics to the 1968 championship as a player-coach.

The Celtics went 16-3 during their dominant postseason run, the third-best playoff record since the turn of the century. They soundly defeated the Dallas Mavericks in five games despite neither Jayson Tatum nor Jaylen Brown playing their best basketball and Porziņģis dealing with a rare leg injury that limited him to 16 total minutes over the series’ final three games.

Mazzulla, who took over as interim coach last season before being promoted to the full-time job, was coaching Division II basketball just five years ago. His meteoritic rise and quick success should offer NBA teams insight that it’s not always the starriest name that will lead you to the height of the sport.