At the beginning of June, Mazzulla flew to Lisbon to work out with Neemias Queta in the gym where he first learned how to play the game he now excels at. That came just a few weeks before Queta signed a long-term extension with the franchise. Mazzulla rebounded for Queta at the Futebol Clube Barreirense, the first club in which Queta ever played basketball. “It’s just surreal,” Queta said. “A couple years ago, if you had said an NBA coach is coming to that specific gym just to see me and get to know me, I would have been like, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’ Joe makes sure — he wants to make that extra step, extra effort, just to make sure you feel comfortable. And I think that’s one of the reasons why he’s such a good coach. He worries about people, and that’s why I’m running through a wall for him.”

This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: “It’s just surreal,” Queta said. “A couple years ago, …