There’s no way to detect what Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla is thinking, or the reason behind his way of thinking, and that rang true before Sunday night’s Game 4 matchup against the Orlando Magic at Kia Center.
Orlando’s flagrant-foul-collecting physicality that caused Jayson Tatum to suffer a wrist injury and Kristaps Porzingis to leave Game 2 with streams of blood and five stitches on his head has come under question. Celtics veterans Jaylen Brown and Al Horford reiterated the locker room’s stance that the Magic have crossed the line in their attempt to get in Boston’s head, but Mazzulla has a different — and much simpler — view on the matter.
“No one’s been arrested,” Mazzulla said pregame, per NBC Sports Boston. “So as long as we’re playing within the rules, you have to win in the trenches; rebounding, turnovers, defending without fouling. All those things go into playing.”
Magic guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope got drowned in a shower of boos from TD Garden’s crowd in Game 2, and when the 32-year-old got tangled up with Horford in a transition, both teams engaged in a brief scuffle. Orlando has embraced the bootlegged Detroit Pistons “Bad Boys” facade, all while Boston has done its job for the most part. The Celtics, even without Tatum for Game 2, defeated the Magic and took a favorable 2-0 series lead — Boston has gone 43-1, historically, when winning the first two games of a playoff series. But the Magic delivered an uppercut response with their Game 3 win.
“There might be a fight breakout or something,” Brown said, looking ahead into Game 4, per CLNS Media. “It’s starting to feel like it’s not even basketball and the refs aren’t even controlling the environment. So it is what it is. If we want to fight it, we want to fight it out, we can do that. We can fight to see who goes to the second round.”
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Mazzulla said it best over six months ago when making it clear that a target would be on the team’s back, and that they should embrace it. The Celtics are the reigning NBA champions and while they aren’t treating their pursuit of Banner 19 like a defense, teams like the Magic are in attack mode as if they’re harboring the Larry O’Brien Trophy behind their bench. Boston can’t control what antics Orlando unleashes or how the officials respond to them, but Mazzulla’s squad also can’t commit 20 turnovers and score 11 points in the third quarter as they did in Game 3. As long as the Celtics clean up their mess, they should hop back in the driver’s seat with a commanding 3-1 series lead and have chance to make the Magic and their tricks disappear for good in Game 5 on Tuesday night.
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Featured image via Mike Watters/Imagn Images
