MIAMI — If you’ve been following the Celtics, you’ve been hearing a lot of talk about the officiating as of late.
On Monday, the NBA fined Jaylen Brown
$35,000 for his public criticism of officials after the Celtics’ loss to the San Antonio Spurs. The Celtics star was livid after his team attempted just 4 free throws in the 100-95 loss — and used his postgame media availability to criticize the officiating crew.“[Referee] Curtis [Blair], all them dudes was terrible tonight,” Brown said. “I don’t care.
They can fine me whatever they want. It’s crazy. Every time we play a good team, it’s the same shit. Somebody please pull up the clips. I’m irate at how they officiated the game today.”
That wasn’t Brown’s first time calling out the referees this season, nor was it the most recent time a high-ranking member of the Celtics has chosen to shine light on an inconsistent whistle.
Two days later, after the Celtics’ 98-96 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Monday night, Joe Mazzulla took the postgame podium in Indianapolis and repeated the phrase “illegal screen” to every question that was asked of him — seemingly referring to a late-game Pascal Siakam screen that the NBA later admitted was illegal, per its Last Two Minutes Report.
Mazzulla, who rarely complains about officiating, also explained his desire to repeatedly utter the phrase “illegal screen” rather than answer postgame questions in earnest. He typically picks and chooses his spots carefully, but felt like the missed call on Siakam was too overt to ignore.
“It’s a balance, because at the end of the day, that’s out of your control. There’s really nothing you can do about it,” Mazzulla said. “But from time to time, there’s always moments where — I thought that was an obvious one.”
Brown shared that his frustrating has grown over the years, because he’s studied NBA officiating extensively, meeting with NBA head of officiating Monty McCutchen, studying the rulebook, and more.
“I’ve studied officiating, I’ve took the next step to know where refs are supposed to be, whose call it is supposed to make, who’s at the point of attack, who’s in a high quadrant, or whatever,” Brown said. “I’ve learned the officiating, so I know who to talk to, who missed the call. And on top of that, I study all the top guys will get to the free throw line at a high rate, to do the same things that they do.”
Brown explained that he just wants the Celtics — who rank last in the league in free throw attempts — to get the same kinds of calls he feels other good teams get.
“I just think we just need a little bit more respect,” he said. “We come out and compete – we’re one of the top teams in the league. We come out and compete on both ends of the ball, on defense and offense. It’s hard to beat good teams if you only get to the free throw line four times, when you play these top-tier teams, no matter what the x’s and o’s are.”
While Brown wasn’t upset at his being fined by the NBA, he did say that the lack of calls can have a snowball effect that have negatively impacted his squad.
“When you make physical drives and you get to the basket, and they don’t call it, it makes it look like a bad possession, because then it leads to our defense,” Brown said. “Then it makes me think: should I be aggressive here? Should I pass it here? You start getting indecisive, and it just snowballs.”
Still, Brown shrugged off the NBA’s decision to penalize him.
“Ask and you shall receive,” Brown said with a smile.
The officiating discourse isn’t dominating the Celtics interally
Don’t get it twisted.
Just because Brown and Mazzulla have recently aired out grievances regarding the officiating, it doesn’t mean the team has been consumed by the issue.
Mazzulla stressed that even if that was his chosen postgame message to the media, Siakam’s screen was far from what he harped on when addressing his team after the loss.
“That’s not the message to our team,” he said. “The message to our team was that run that they went on coming out of timeouts, not turning the ball over, making sure we make our 2-on-1 reads, situational rebounding. That’s the real message.”
At film on Wednesday, Mazzulla focused on costly mistakes earlier in the game that put the Celtics in position where one call could determine the final come. Against the Pacers, the Celtics made a series of mistakes to open the second half that ultimately contributed to the loss.
“The message to our team today was: we got to clean up that third quarter run, clean up our end-of-game execution, whether it’s on offense, defense,” Mazzulla said. “Execution is different in so many ways; it could be screening, it could be spacing, could be shotmaking, could be making the 2-on-1 read. It could be defense. It could be situational tendencies on individual players that we’re guarding. So that’s more important, because you can control it over the course of the long run.”
Brown said he plans on continuing to be aggressive, but will be mindful to stay locked in even if he doesn’t get calls.
“If I don’t get it, [I’ll] just have a stoic mentality and just — on to the next play.”
Mazzulla also pointed out that the Celtics haven’t been overly distracted by calls, and rank near the botom of the league in technical fouls.
“We’re not costing points as long as long as we do what we need to do to stick to the process of winning — and we do a great job of not costing ourselves points.”
It’s true; the Celtics have only been called for 14 technicals this season, which tied for fifth-least among NBA teams. (For reference, six NBA teams have been called for at least 30 techs this season, per Fox Sports).
So, though discussions with the media have recently centered around officiating, that’s not a reflection of what’s going on internally.
“For the most part, I don’t think it’s taken away from our execution and our mentality towards the game,” Mazzulla said, “which I think is the most important thing.”
