Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla on locker room relationships: ‘This isn’t supposed to be summer camp’

Joe Mazzulla doesn’t expect his players to agree on everything. He doesn’t think disagreements automatically mean something is wrong, either.

With Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown’s relationship drawing attention before Tuesday’s Celtics-Sixers matchup, Mazzulla offered a broader explanation of how NBA locker rooms work.

“One, I’ll tell you right now, all 30 teams, it’s not Boy Scouts,” Mazzulla said, via Celtics on CLNS and Gautam Varier of Fadeaway World. “We’re not all just sitting there getting along, and everyone’s happy-go-lucky. I mean, that’s just not how the world works.”

Winning requires cooperation. It doesn’t require everyone to spend their free time together or react the same way when things become difficult.

“We’re going after something that’s highly competitive and stressful, and there’s things at stake, and with that comes conflict,” Mazzulla said. “Doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. You work through things together.”

That distinction gets lost when every greeting, expression and postgame interaction becomes something to dissect. Tatum and Brown won a championship together in 2024. Whatever their relationship away from basketball, they demonstrated that they could accomplish plenty on the court.

Mazzulla pointed to the different experiences inside any locker room, from family circumstances to players who have been traded repeatedly and others who have spent their careers in one place.

“I think the one thing I’d like people to understand is this isn’t supposed to be summer camp where we all just get along all the time,” he said. “There’s plenty of times within a great culture, good culture, where you have disagreements.”

His job includes making room for those differences while keeping everyone working toward the same result.

“But they’re also humans,” Mazzulla said. “They’re people. They got guys that have been through a bunch of different stuff, and I think it’s important to highlight that and leave space for that.”

Related: Jaylen Brown struggles against former team as Paul George makes Celtics’ case