With the game in the balance tied 79-79 at the close of the third, Jrue Holiday drove on Taurean Prince with time expiring. The Celtics would get whistled for a shot clock violation and, well, all hell broke loose.
Joe Mazzulla started chirping with referee JB Derosa and from across court, Tony Brothers whistled the head coach for a technical foul.
When asked about the incident after the Celtics 119-108 win over the Bucks, Mazzulla hinted to a little gamesmanship on his part.
“No frustration,” Mazzulla said stonefaced. “Let’s just try and create as much chaos as we can. That was it.”
It worked. The stunt would spark an 11-2 run to end the third on a pair of Derrick White threes, a Jordan Walsh tip-in over Giannis Antetokounmpo, and a buzzer-beating triple from Payton Pritchard.
The energy had certainly shifted.
“That’s what we felt like the environment needed at the time. It was just to create chaos. We’re just going to create it. We just created the chaos together, went through the chaos together, and responded pretty well,” Mazzulla continued.
“Nobody had an idea what was going on. It was just chaos. It was perfect. It was exactly what we needed.”
Earlier in the quarter, Jayson Tatum drew a tech too for arguing with the officials, but that didn’t Mazzulla at all.
“I like yelling at those guys, too,” Mazzulla said. “I’m certainly not going to stop them from doing it.”
The Celtics are now 4-0 to start the regular season with a week-long four-game road trip ahead of them. They’ve had blowouts over would-be contenders, onslaughts and nailbiters against expected lottery teams, and a sleepwalk vs. Milwaukee that needed a little jolt.
