Jordan Walsh went viral—but not for the right reasons. In a rough Summer League outing against the Heat, the Celtics forward got ejected after some first-half antics left a sour impression. The loss stung, but Walsh’s early exit stung even more. While he was clearly frustrated with himself, help came from someone watching closely from afar. Head coach Joe Mazzulla, despite being away from the Summer League action, made sure to support his young player. As the Celtics face changes of their own, Mazzulla’s backing shows that even in tough moments, he’s keeping his guys close.

The Celtics reporter for The Athletic, Jay King, caught up with Jordan Walsh after the game, and he had this to say from their conversation. “Jordan Walsh said as soon as he got to the locker room he had a text from Joe Mazzulla. The coach told Walsh he loved the ejection.”

The ejection that Coach Mazzulla loved so much was pretty early into the game against the Miami Heat. With four minutes left for the first half, the Celtics wing shoved Heat’s Erik Stevenson after finishing a layup through contact and got a tech.

Only seconds later, he fouled Heat’s Swede guard, Pelle Larsson with his forearm before shoving him out of bounds. Larsson crashed into the Celtics courtside where the new team owner, Bill Chisholm and the team’s president of basketball operations, Brad Stevens were seated. Walsh earned his second technical in this one and was ejected.

Miami proceeded to win 100-96 while Boston is now 2-1 with its first Summer League loss. After the game, Walsh returned to apologize to Stevens.

But that was after Mazzulla gave the 21-year-old a pep talk through text. From the sound of it, the forward needed that.

Jordan Walsh took a dignified stance

In his third year as an NBA player, Jordan Walsh took the ejection rather hard. After he apologized to the team bosses, he expressed disappointment in himself.

“For one, I had to go and make sure everybody was ok because I caused that,” Walsh said. “But I just wanted to apologize to him [Stevens], just because that’s not really me. I’m more of a professional than that, more mature than that. So I just wanted to make sure that he knew that this wasn’t going to be a continuous thing.”

Calling the foul on Larsson a “dumb decision,” Walsh admitted he forgot about the first tech. He was apologetic towards the Heat player too. “I also remember that don’t nobody really hit anybody in the NBA. So, I really didn’t have a reason to attack him. But I thought that it was dumb. That was like a rookie mistake that was immature of me to do, and I can’t let that happen again.”

He felt he was mad at something that led to emotions spilling on the court. As dramatic as it was, Mazzulla love the feisty display enough to let Walsh known immediately. It may have worked. If his post-game statements hint that it won’t happen again, Walsh made it pretty clear, “I don’t want to be a pushover.” So Mazzulla is going to bring out more of this headstrong Walsh in the near future.