Anybody who follows the NBA with any kind of regularity is aware of by now that Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla is an odd cat. To me, he is odd in superior methods. The man supposedly watched “The City” two to a few instances every week at one level in his life, and he has actual ideas on find out how to actually rob Fenway Park, to the purpose that he scopes out exit factors when he is at Purple Sox video games. Truthfully, the man is a treasure.
So when Mazzulla made an look on Boston radio and was requested what he would change concerning the NBA, you knew he wasn’t going to offer a inventory reply. True to type, Mazzulla elaborated on why the NBA ought to institute energy performs after fouls, forcing the offending workforce to play a person down for a size of time, as in hockey.
Oh, and he additionally desires to “carry again preventing.”
“The largest factor that we rob individuals of from an leisure standpoint is you possibly can’t struggle anymore. I want we might carry again preventing,” Mazzulla mentioned on NBC Sports activities Boston in a way that definitely did not sound like he was making an attempt to be humorous. “What’s extra entertaining than slightly scuffle? How are available baseball they’re allowed to clear the benches? How are available hockey they’re allowed to struggle? I do not perceive. I simply do not get why some sports activities are allowed to clear the benches. They’ve bats and weapons [in baseball]. We do not. We now have a ball. The opposite sport [hockey] has one of many hardest enjoying surfaces and a puck and a stick. And but we’re not allowed to throw down slightly bit?”
Now pay attention, I am undecided that is all that nice an concept. I believe we will all agree on that. However do not act like there is not part of you that will get fired up with hockey gamers drop their sticks. NBA followers are virtually universally in favor of bringing a certain quantity of physicality again to the sport. Possibly not circling up and throwing fists, however toughness and competitiveness spilling over into some stage of altercation has been occurring in sports activities for years. To Mazzulla’s level, it nonetheless occurs in different sports activities. There’s a sure attraction to it, no?
After all, there’s an actual hazard with this. These are large, sturdy athletes, and clearly you may get actually damage in an actual struggle (versus the NBA’s tried and true “maintain me again” shoving matches). That is why Mazzulla’s pugilistic wishes won’t ever occur.
As soon as the league needed to cope with the repute hit and PR fallout from the “Malice on the Palace,” something that even resembles preventing was by no means once more going to be condoned within the NBA. Clearly that is the sensible solution to go about this, however that does not imply it is nonetheless not an entertaining thought to think about a world of onerous fouls and occasional throw downs on an NBA ground. Joe Mazzulla merely mentioned what quite a lot of us have thought quietly. It is a man of the individuals.