Joe Mazzulla’s postgame press conference was brief. Here is his entire exchange with Abby Chin, who did all the asking of questions in this exchange.
“Joe, you gave yourselves a chance to win,” she began. “Could you take us through the last couple of possessions?”
“Illegal screen.”
“What did you say?”
“Illegal screen.”
“Illegal screen?”
“Illegal screen.”
“What fell apart to get you guys behind? And then how were you able to get back into it?”
“Illegal screen.”
“What do mean by that? What do you want people to know about that?”
“Illegal screen.”
“Would you like to say anything else?”
“Illegal screen.”
And with that came Celtics PR’s official signoff, “thank you, Joe,” 40 seconds after he sat down.
I get it. Mazzulla is clearly livid over the refs refusing to call an obviously illegal screen by Pascal Siakam. There was some legitimate anger in that 40 seconds over a missed opportunity to steal a game without their best player this season. Mazzulla is a highly competitive guy, so something out of his control taking away a chance to win won’t sit well with him.
At the same time, these postgame press conferences are as much about sending messages to certain audiences as they are about answering our questions.
So Mazzulla’s terse back-and-forth may have been more about reading the locker room and backing his guys up after they fought back, gave themselves a chance to win, and fell just short. He may have had a room full of angry players and his media session was a chance for him to be the voice of his team’s frustrations.
Whatever it was, it continues a trend for the Celtics. Earlier in the day, Jaylen Brown was hit with a $35,000 fine for criticizing the refs after the loss to San Antonio.
“I'm irate at how they officiated the game,” Brown said after the loss to San Antonio. “We shot four free throws tonight and lost the game by four. Not to say that's the whole game, the whole story. We gotta be better in spots. I gotta be better in spots. But goddam. I'm driving to the basket. I'm physical. I don't flop. I don't shy away from contact. I go up strong. I'm athletic. And nothing. Zero free throws tonight. The inconsistency is f---ing crazy.”
Mazzulla’s comments certainly don’t rise to the level of what Brown said. There's probably no fine heading his way for repeating a phrase, thinly veiled as it is. But criticism is criticism. The Celtics are not happy with the officiating lately, and they're not afraid to let that be known.
On one hand, it’s their right to express their displeasure, especially when they have a point. Mazzulla is right to believe Siakam committed an offensive foul because that is a textbook illegal screen. Brown was right about the lack of fouls, or at least the inconsistency of the calls during the Spurs game.
On the other hand, though, wading into multiple days of chanting ‘refs you suck’ through the media is fraught with peril. It comes off as quite complain-y, especially for a team that prides itself on the “no excuses” mantra. Even if they don’t intend it to be the case, it feels like they are absolving themselves of accountability, at least to some degree, by pushing the onus onto the officiating crew.
It’s actually a weird place for this team to be. They’ve complained about the refs before, everyone has, but this is the most condensed stretch of highly focused criticism I’ve seen from a team in a long time. Brown has gone off twice and Mazzula once in less than a week. The Celtics have lost three of four, and the refs have been a central figure in all three of those losses.
They didn’t have to be. There were very good, non-ref reasons the games went the way they did. Denver, even without Nikola Jokić, is a good team, and Jamal Murray is had an incredible game. Victor Wembanyama did Victor Wembanyama things late in game Saturday night and the Celtics were guarding him with Baylor Scheierman because they didn’t have many options. And then they went cold on their fourth game in six nights while missing their MVP candidate.
It’d be very easy to make a note of the missed call somehow and move on. There's an easy way to send the message without making it the whole message. In each of these losses, there were the Mazzulla-trademarked 10 to 15 plays that could have swung things in Boston’s favor. The illegal screen with 16 seconds to play had nothing to do with the six minutes of misses and turnover that put Boston behind by 13. It had nothing to do with the shot selection or simple, flat-out misses.
Maybe this was a distraction from all that. Maybe all of us are doing the Celtics a favor by writing about another Celtic having an issue with the officials in a season where a lot of people seem to have a problem with officials. It could be that Mazzulla wants to throw red meat into the den of media wolves and rabid Celtics fans so they can go into a feeding frenzy while the team deals with what is actually wrong.
Whatever it is, though, it should probably stop at this point. The arguments have been made. We’ve all heard them. So have the refs.
I’m sure the Celtics are hoping that the message has been received, and the officials will do whatever it is the Celtics want them to do. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if Neemias Queta fouls out of the Miami game because of four illegal screens.
I hope that we can move on from this because nobody actually wins in this scenario. Be it a distraction or retribution, there's nowhere to go from here but down, and I think we’re already too close to rock bottom.
