Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla has never been afraid to challenge conventional thinking. From incorporating mixed martial arts philosophies into basketball to emphasizing psychological preparation as much as physical performance, the 2024 NBA champion has developed a reputation for finding inspiration in unexpected places.
Now, he has added artificial intelligence to his coaching toolbox.
During an appearance on Boston’s 98.5 The Sports Hub on Thursday, Mazzulla revealed that he regularly uses Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude to analyze his coaching decisions, improve practice efficiency and explore the psychological challenges of leading an NBA team.
“I use Claude every day for coaching thoughts, and being able to process stuff psychologically and being able to break things down into, ok, how do you handle situations like this? So I like where Jake’s headed, using Claude for things.” Mazzulla explained.
Interestingly, Mazzulla admitted that he has never tried ChatGPT, expressing a clear preference for Claude and its ability to challenge his thinking.
“I haven’t [used ChatGPT], but I’m all in on Claude. One of the great things about Claude is it ends everything in a question. So it keeps you in a constant state of searching, getting more out of you. Better prompts. It just prompts you, it challenges your brain.”
It was beneficial in the offseason, my personal development and also where I wanted to take this psychologically for our team. It’s good because in coaching, you say phrases and you riff on the phrase. Like, ‘we’re looking for moments of greatness,’ so then you could throw that in there and say ok, how can we find moments of greatness within what we’re trying to do. So it’s been good.”
However, the most fascinating part of Mazzulla’s approach is how he uses AI to examine his previous coaching decisions rather than simply asking for solutions to future problems.
“I think it’s more to learn from your former self. So I’ll throw in last year’s practice plan and be like, was that efficient? Because you don’t know in the present moment if it was an efficient practice plan or if it was an efficient use of your time?
So you learn from your former self, and so you throw in a practice plan from last year. OK what is the efficiency of this plan? What was the percentage of the things that we got done? Did I match what my points of emphasis for that day to the practice plan?
Like you could say we have to get better at offensive rebounding, but if it’s only 5% of your practice plan, then you’re not really emphasizing what you have to get better at.”
The Celtics coach also revealed that he has begun questioning something as fundamental as the team’s halftime routine.
“You throw in, here’s our halftime process. How can our halftime process become more efficient? Because we watch film sometimes, but it’s a reactive film session because we’re watching film of plays that already happened, not plays that may happen.
So are you distracting the brain because you’re telling them things that have already happened, when they might not even be in that position in the second half?”
For Mazzulla, AI isn’t about replacing human judgment or allowing technology to make basketball decisions. It’s about challenging established routines and identifying opportunities for improvement.
And his philosophy ultimately comes down to one simple question:
“So it’s not so much about, how can it help me going forward? It’s how can it help me learn from my past and make me better?”
