Should Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla have won the 2026 NBA Coach of the Year award?

Should Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla have won the 2026 NBA Coach of the Year award? At first glance, the answer is an unequivocal yes, with the Rhode Island native having led the Celtics to a wildly overachieving season in a campaign many saw as a play-in berth outcome at best.

But Boston was also vividly exposed in the 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs, falling at the hands of a middling Philadelphia 76ers squad that got dog walked by the New York Knicks in the next round of the postseason. These things should not play into a regular season award, but it does raise the question of how much we saw from the Celtics in their 2025-26 campaign was ever real to begin with.

The folks behind the “Green With Envy” YouTube channel put together a clip from a recent episode taking a look at whether Mazzulla truly deserved the COTY award. Check it out below!

Listen to “Havlicek Stole the Pod” on:

Blue Wire: https://tiny.ee/CdKp

iTunes: https://tiny.ee/RK47

YouTube: https://tiny.ee/cOW3

This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Should Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla have won the Coach of the Year award?