What Joe Mazzulla learned from Patriots meetings with Jerod Mayo

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla has attended Patriots practice several times over the past few years.

He attended training camp with Bill Belichick and attended meetings with Jerod Mayo.

“Joe has been great,” Mayo said. “I think I told you, Joe and I, before he became head coach, we had a relationship. He participated in defensive meetings and we talked about philosophical things, philosophy. Team sports are team sports. It’s great.

Mazzulla talked about what he learned from those defensive meetings earlier this week.

“I think you can learn a lot from it,” Mazzulla said, according to Souichi Terada of MassLive. “Advance communication, how they disguise their defenses: start one, move on to another. What are their different situational defenses.

“All of these things are extremely important,” Mazzulla added. “It’s great to be able to see how you can take those things into account to disguise what your defense looks like at the start of a possession. Maybe you’ll move on to something different later in ownership.

Mazzulla relies on various sources to deliver personal messages to Celtics players.

Sometimes he follows the advice of Manchester City football manager Pep Guardiola. Sometimes he shows the team videos of killer whales. He even filmed a Red Sox loss over the summer.

Mayo has a growing reputation as a players’ coach. Defensive tackle Davon Godchaux said Patriots players would run through a brick wall for him when Mayo appeared on his podcast earlier this month.

Mazzulla said he learned by observing how Mayo handled relationships with players.

“Relationship management,” Mazzulla said. “I learned from him that relationship management is important, communication is important and you just have to be innovative in how you go about it. There’s only ever one way to do it, so it’s good to see it in its environment and be able to learn from it.

Mayo said he got into the habit of taking notes in a little red notebook during games. When asked what he tried to glean from his note-taking as a defensive-minded coach observing opposing offenses, Mayo responded:

“Even defensive-minded or offensive-minded coaches seem a little weird to me. What I would say is that football is football. The game is about space, and I try to explain it to the coaches, I try to explain it to the players, even to my son.

“Most of these team sports are about space. So obviously you can watch football: 3×1 is obviously, it’s about space. But it’s the same thing in hockey. Sometimes I watch hockey, and they overload a team, and they have a guy here. Now, depending on who this guy is here, you have to make a defensive choice.

Mayo used Celtics star Jayson Tatum as an example while explaining how spacing applies to both football and basketball.

“If you have Jayson Tatum here against someone who’s not much of a scorer and we overload a team, you have to make a choice,” Mayo said. “We’re going to double Jayson Tatum and come up short here on the overload side, or we’re just going to try to play straight, and this guy now has a 1-on-1. All these plays, it’s the same in football, it It’s a question of space. Overload one side, cross it, do anything, but it’s about numbers and space.