Joe Mazzulla (l) and Jayson Tatum (r)

Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla is not only the youngest coach in the NBA at 36 years old — younger than Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy by 160 days — he is also the weirdest. Mazzulla, by his own account, sleeps with his mouth taped shut to “optimize his REM cycle.” He gave up chewing gum because it was “was messing up my heart rate variability and I wasn’t getting the breaths that I needed to be as focused as I was.”

In his first season as Celtics coach, Mazzulla missed two games with an eye injury he suffered in an overly intense pickup basketball game with his assistant coaches. He says he watches the 2010 Ben Affleck movie The Town four times per week to absorb the movie’s “Boston mindset.”

Celtics 38-year-old, 18-year veteran Al Horford describes the coach as “wacky.” But Celtics players say they love Mazzulla. And in 2024 at age 35, Mazzulla became the youngest coach to win an NBA championship since another Celtics coach, Bill Russell, did it as a player-coach at age 34 in 1968.

Tatum Reveals Bizarre Mazzulla Incident Last Week

Now, with the Celtics at 55-19 and holding a lock on the NBA’s Eastern Conference No. 2 seed, the team’s franchise superstar Jayson Tatum has revealed perhaps the weirdest Mazzulla story yet — and the tale involves NFL star Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs. In fact, Tatum told the story directly to Kelce and Kelce’s brother Jason, a retired center for the Philadelphia Eagles, on the Kelce brothers’ podcast New Heights last week.

After Travis Kelce asked him what it was like to play for Mazzulla, Tatum replied, “Joe is crazy!”

The 27-year-old three-time All-NBA first-teamer then launched into his latest Mazzulla story, telling Kelce that he is the one who prompted the new example of the coach’s “crazy” behavior.

According to Tatum, Mazzulla told said he wanted his star player to be suspended for accumulating too many technical fouls — then said that he wanted Tatum to punch him and brought up an incident during Super Bowl 58, in which the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers. But in that game, Kelce appeared to angrily bump Chiefs coach Andy Reid.

“We actually talked about you,” Tatum told the Chief’s future Hall of Fame tight end. “We played Portland the other day. I had got a tech. The game was basically over. I ended up getting a tech with like 30 seconds left. Joe, he comes up to me after the game. If you get like 16 or 17 texts. You get suspended for a game. So Joe was like, ‘Yo, can you just get four more so you can get suspended?’ And I’m like, ‘Joe, I think I’m done.’ He’s like, ‘I would much rather you just come punch me. I wanna fight. He’s like, ‘When Travis Kelce ran into to Andy Reed, do that to me!’”

Celtics Star Also Addresses Ankle Injury

The tale caused both Kelce brothers to break out laughing, and Travis Kelce concluded by saying, “Shout out to Coach Reid for being the man.”

Also on the podcast, Travis Kelce asked Tatum about the ankle injury he suffered during a March 24 Celtics win over the Sacramento Kings. At the time, the injury looked severe, but Tatum shrugged it off on the Kelce podcast.

“I’m feeling good man. There’s a few benefits to being 27,” he told the Chiefs’ star. “You know, you recover a little bit faster. I’ll be all right.”

After missing one game, Tatum returned to the Celtics starting five on Saturday against the Spurs in San Antonio. He played nearly 36 minutes and scored a game-high 29 points in the Celtics 121-111 victory, the defending NBA champions’ eighth win in a row.