Mazzulla no longer on the defensive
Celtics coach told to stop contesting opponents’ shots
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla went viral last week for jumping off the sideline to contest a long-range shot from Suns forward Royce O’Neale after the whistle in the second half of an eventual Boston win.
Mazzulla stood by the decision post-game, explaining he instructs his assistants to do the same and didn’t want O’Neale, who had yet to make a field goal, to gain any confidence from a potential make. The young coach also reminded reporters he’d done it before.
One week later, Mazzulla said he won’t be leaving his feet anymore.
During a Wednesday appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Zolak & Bertrand,” Mazzulla revealed he will no longer be contesting shots from the bench, and neither will his assistants.
“I’ve been told I can’t do that anymore,” Mazzulla said.
Who told him that? “I can’t say,” he replied. “All I know is we won’t be doing it anymore.”
The 35-year-old coach insisted it was part of reinforcing the Celtics’ defensive mentality of making opponents uneasy.
“We want our opponents to constantly be uncomfortable,” he said. “We don’t want to give them an edge at any point. So I appreciate the players allowing us to be ourselves, and I appreciate the staff buying into that.”
Mazzulla’s viral moment drew outside criticism, including from TNT analyst and Pro Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley. Mazzulla brushed off such criticism Wednesday.
“I hope we piss everybody off,” he told 98.5.
After his viral moment, Mazzulla doubled-down on the decision and said he didn’t care about the optics of a coach leaping off the bench. He also claimed the play wasn’t illegal.
“It’s about just setting the tone. It’s that. One of my biggest pet peeves is just thinking that a guy’s just going to get a free shot, and it’s just not the way it works,” he said. “And if we’re going to hold our team to the standard, then hold the staff to the same thing. So there’s been times where we’ve missed it and I’ve held the staff accountable to it, and you’ve got to do the best job you can of not doing it.”
The Celtics entered Wednesday’s tip-off against Milwaukee with a 110.2 defensive rating, second-best in the league.
Always a special visit
Even as he makes his third different coaching stop since he left the Celtics in 2013, it remains special for Doc Rivers whenever he returns to Boston. As he made his first trip to his old home as the Bucks coach on Wednesday — a job he took in January — Rivers said coming back to Boston means more to him than any other city he’s coached in.
“All of them have meaning because you worked there,” Rivers said. “Orlando gave me my first job, the Clippers, Philly, but this is just, I mean come on, I was here for nine years, we won a title, we went to the Finals twice. My emotional energy will always be here clearly. This is another home for me. And I come here in the summer and spend time, go to the Vineyard, spend time. I feel like a Bostonian when I do that.
“So yeah, that will never go away, and it’s cool. It’s cool being here whenever I get here. I go to the same places, I eat the same food and just happy all those restaurants are still open, which means I had good taste.”
Rivers, who took the Bucks job after they fired first-year coach Adrian Griffin, said the transition has been complicated as he gets to know a new team midseason. The Bucks have been up and down, but are still second in the East and remain a potential Eastern Conference opponent for the Celtics even though they entered Wednesday 10 games back.
“Well, the only thing that I know is we’re not going to catch them in the standings, I’m pretty sure of that,” Rivers said. “Other than that, they’re terrific. They’ve been the best team in the NBA thus far but as I’ve learned and we’ve all learned, you don’t get a lot for that. You just get to be called the best team in the NBA right now and they’re going to be hard to beat. They’re hard to beat in this building, obviously. But that’s why, from our standpoint, we don’t look at all that, we just look at us from within and see if we can be ready if that time comes.”
Tip-ins
Sam Hauser (left ankle sprain) and Jrue Holiday (right AC joint sprain) missed Wednesday’s game against the Bucks. Hauser was warming up pregame and was upgraded to questionable on Tuesday, which indicates he’s recovering well after suffering the injury on Sunday. …
Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo (hamstring) also missed Wednesday’s game and stayed back home in Milwaukee. With few meaningful regular season games left for the Celtics, Wednesday’s game against the Bucks initially represented a valuable opportunity for them to experiment with some things in case they match up in the playoffs, but Antetokounmpo’s absence put a wrench in that. Mazzulla turned the page.
“Not really. I mean, that’s kind of what the game calls for,” Mazzulla said. “Even if he was in, we’re missing a couple guys and that’s just kind of how it works. We have a chance — we play them again in a week and a half or so, we’ll see what it calls for at that time. But, at this juncture it’s more about like OK, what do we have available, where are we at, and what can we learn? What can we be ready to take away, what can we be ready to execute? What can we learn from the game?”