Joe Mazzulla’s unusual gamesmanship tactic in last week’s Suns-Celtics game didn’t sit well with Charles Barkley.
Royce O’Neale tried to get a shot up late in the fourth quarter after play was stopped at TD Garden, but Mazzulla didn’t make it easy for the Phoenix forward. The Celtics coach made his way onto the court and tried to swat the shot before huddling up with his team for a timeout.
It wasn’t amusing to Barkley, who said he would have “knocked the hell” out of Mazzulla if he was in O’Neale’s spot. During an appearance Wednesday on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Zolak and Bertrand,” Mazzulla embraced that threat.
“I’m always up to get knocked out,” Mazzulla said, as transcribed by MassLive. “I think that’s important, too. …If you can’t go through the day hoping you don’t get knocked out, I don’t know what do you do.”
While the Celtics head coach clearly isn’t afraid of the potential consequences of his shot-block antic, you won’t be seeing it anymore. Before Wednesday’s win over the Milwaukee Bucks, Mazzulla revealed he was told he no longer can do it.
Of course, it’s not like Boston needs an extra edge anyway. The C’s own an 11-game lead atop the Eastern Conference standings with 13 games left on their regular-season schedule.
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