After the buzzer sounded on the Celtics’ first loss in nearly two weeks, Joe Mazzulla stormed onto the floor toward lead official Tony Brothers as Celtics security and assistant coaches held him back. Mazzulla later, after calming down for 10-15 minutes, said he wanted to wish the officiating crew happy holidays in case he didn’t see them next week.
“I was never really worked up,” Mazzulla said. “I was fine.”
The Celtics trailed, 99-96, with five minutes remaining, then back-to-back technical fouls on Mazzulla and Jaylen Brown, followed by one moments later on Jayson Tatum sent Boston a spiral in the final minutes of a game that featured 16 lead changes and nine ties. It’s unclear what frustrated the Celtics initially, Payton Pritchard forcing a jump ball on Ayo Dosunmu before Mazzulla stepped onto the floor to communicate something to the officials.
Asked twice later why he did so, Mazzulla repeated that he can’t exit the bench like he did, which a pool report with Brothers later affirmed. Brown received his own technical, expressing frustration over Brothers warning him that he can’t say Mazzulla received a technical for nothing, or he’d draw one too.
The Bulls went on an 18-9 run after, winning 117-108, before Mazzulla admitted Boston let go of the rope defensively.
“Tensions were high. The first one, Joe got called for, I think he stepped on the court,” Kristaps Porziņģis said, speaking quickly in the locker room after the game. “Then, JB was talking, everybody’s temper just got flared up a bit. It wasn’t our best moment right there, we had to maintain our cool because the game was right there. Tonight was a tough night for us.”
Mazzulla liked the team’s defensive poise through missed shots early. Brown manned the ball for much of the first, splitting four shots over the first four minutes while the rest of the team started 1-of-7. Defensively, Tatum picked up all-star candidate Nikola Vučević, who entered averaging 21.1 points per game, while Porzingis returned from his heel pain in Washington roaming away from Ayo Dosunmu. Porzingis and Jrue Holiday blocked a pair of shots while Chicago shot 2-of-9 following their home shooting surge that threatened the Celtics late last month.
Later in the first, with the Bulls continuing to court three guards into their second unit, Mazzulla inserted Jaden Springer, who only logged 26 minutes in eight games to begin this year. He played a late situational in-bounds defense role late in the team’s loss at Cleveland last month, and appeared sparingly last season after the Celtics acquired him from Philadelphia. On Thursday, he played nine straight minutes, getting inside to pry an offensive rebound loose, knocking the ball away from Talen Horton-Tucker and missing a layup, which earned him a pat on the chest from Brown. The Celtics won his minutes by three points, staggering Derrick White, Pritchard and Holiday alongside him while Tatum and Brown traded time at the four.
While the Celtics held Vučević one shot through his first nine minutes, Zach LaVine slid by Boston’s perimeter defenders to start 5-of-8 and Chicago matched the Celtics’ 22 three-point attempts late into the second quarter while trading 12 leads. The teams tied six times, Porzingis finishing an 12-point flurry midway through the quarter to tie the game at 48 before White’s three, only Boston’s sixth to that point, kept pace with the Bulls’ eight and handed them the lead, entering the second half ahead 57-54. LaVine’s scoring, 36 points in 33 minutes, and the Bulls’ shooting 36.5% on 52 three-point attempts made it a tenuous advantage.
Brown beat LaVine twice to set up a Tatum three and his own finish early in the third, but Brown fell to 4-of-12 into the second half while Boston’s three-point shooting dipped below 24% into the fourth quarter. Miscommunications mounted on the defensive end while Springer’s effectiveness waned, Dosunmu beating Pritchard and Springer downhill on a failed switch. Dosunmu tied the game at 80 moments before the fourth on a third chance shot following two of Chicago’s 11 offensive rebounds. Pritchard and Tatum closed the frame with threes trying to stay ahead of the Bulls in volume, but they’d only convert three more on 17 tries in the fourth.
Hedging away from Dosunmu and Horton-Tucker stopped working, both hitting threes to begin the fourth. Springer missed his, Horton-Tucker scoring the other way to take the lead back. Dosunmu scored twice beating the Celtics downhill to jump-start a 7-of-9 fourth for the Bulls inside. Boston trailed 99-90, working back to within one possession on White free throws and a Brown triple before the techs started flying and the Celtics faded.
“The No. 1 enemy will be the refs every time, so they had to hear it tonight a little bit,” Porzingis said. “Some nights, it’s like that. Of course, they make mistakes also, but we were also as a team, far from our level tonight. But hats off to Chicago. They had a good game plan, they played hard.”
- Joe Mazzulla addressed reported robberies targeting Jaylen Brown and his mother, along with assistant coach Amile Jefferson while the Celtics traveled to Washington DC last weekend. He called the incidents scary, while expressing thankfulness everyone involved escaped safely. Brown reportedly missed Tuesday’s practice to be with his mother, whose address was apparently mistaken for Brown’s, while Jefferson reportedly lost his championship ring in his incident. The Boston Celtics are working with security personnel and local police to tighten up their procedures, Mazzulla said. The robberies followed a string of other ones across the country targeting professional athletes.
- Jaylen Brown expressed frustration with media gathering near the house following the incident and relief that nobody was harmed in the incidents. It’s been a difficult week, he said, and it changed his thinking on things. He wouldn’t specify how, specifically, and declined to answer further questions about the story. Jayson Tatum said the team is being there for Brown and Jefferson however they can.
- Sam Hauser missed his fifth game this season with a lingering back issue after sitting out with an adductor strain earlier this month. The Celtics have missed him across those six nights, struggling to find a reliable wing option without him, especially when another front court player is out. That led Boston to play Luke Kornet and Neemias Queta together against Memphis when Porzingis and Hauser went down in the same game. Porzingis returned from his foot pain on Sunday, making Springer’s usage more experimental, but it also reflected Jordan Walsh’s struggles in spot opportunities, Drew Peterson’s absence on assignment with Maine and Baylor Scheierman being far from an NBA role for now. Xavier Tillman Sr., after a spot start earlier this season, hasn’t played at all recently. Depth wing could become a need for the Celtics closer to the deadline.
