The Boston Celtics open up the preseason on Thursday night with a road game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. While there's plenty that we'll be able to take away from the performance, we will have to table some of our takeaways.

Why? Because we learned that head coach Joe Mazzulla won't coach the game, instead electing to let two of his assistants run the show.

And this apparently isn't the only game that Mazzulla will do this for. As reported by Noa Dalzell of CLNS Celtics, Mazzulla also won't coach the final preseason game of this season. He'll let Sam Cassell, a longtime Celtics assistant, do that.

Again, Mazzulla giving his assistants these opportunities are good things that help instill trust and reward hard work, but they do change up exactly how you can view them. These coaches won't do everything the exact same way that Mazzulla would, which changes the calculus. But they do help them get experience should they want to be head coaches also.

The final preseason game is Oct. 16 on the road at the Philadelphia 76ers. The C's open up the regular season on Oct. 20 at the Detroit Pistons. Boston went 56-26 in the regular season in 2025-26, earning the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. Detroit was the No. 1.

Now 56 years old, Cassell spent 15 years in the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers, New Jersey Nets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Celtics, Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks. 

He played in 993 total games, earning an All-Star appearance with Milwaukee in 2003-04. He averaged 15.7 ppg and 6.0 assists. He finished 10th in the MVP voting in 2003-04, also earning a spot on the NBA's All-Second Team.

He also finished fourth for the Sixth Man of the Year in 1995-96.

He spent only 17 games in Boston in the final year of his career (2007-08), which also happened to be the year that the Celtics won the NBA title under Doc Rivers. He played in 21 games in that playoff run, scoring 4.5 ppg and dishing out 1.2 assists. 

The Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in that series.

Cassell went to the playoffs 11 times in his career, and he won three total NBA titles, also collecting two with the Houston Rockets in the mid-1990s. Those Rockets team capitalized on Michael Jordan's brief exit from the sport and won back-to-back titles.

He's been an assistant coach in the league since 2009 with the Washington Wizards, Clippers, 76ers and Celtics.