Jayson Tatum and his Boston Celtics teammates were focused on every word from their interim head coach Joe Mazzulla when he addressed them for the first time in the midst of turmoil. The 34-year-old was just elevated from assistant coach to first-time NBA head coach in the wake of Celtics head coach Ime Udoka being suspended for the entire 2022-23 season for an intimate relationship with a female staff member.

By the end of Mazzulla’s straightforward motivational speech, Tatum and the reigning NBA Eastern Conference champions regained confidence that they could survive this wildfire with him on the sideline and get back to basketball. “The thing I appreciated most was that he wasn’t going to try to be somebody he wasn’t because he was in a new role,” Tatum recently told Andscape.