The Boston Celtics‘ two-game winning streak was snapped on Saturday, with the Minnesota Timberwolves beating them 119-115 at Target Center. Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla wasn’t all too happy with the officiating in the game, and he used a hilarious analogy to call out the referees in his postgame press conference.
“It was first and 10, and I thought one of their guys had a great tackle on Derrick [White] there on the sideline for a tackle for loss, and that was really good by them,” Mazzulla said. “So, our offensive line’s got to do a better job of just winning in the trenches and just not letting them get to the second layer.”
Watching this clip without any context would leave one rather confused, but this was quite the tactic to avoid getting fined by the NBA for criticizing the officiating. Mazzula was referring to a play where Donte DiVincenzo basically tackled Derrick White, but no foul was called.
The Celtics haven’t gotten too many calls this season. They are averaging 18.7 free-throw attempts per game, which ranks dead last in the NBA. No other team is even below 20.
Now, part of this is down to the Celtics not attacking the rim as much, as their average of 42.3 points in the paint per game ranks 28th in the NBA. Still, Mazzula and his staff would certainly believe their team should be getting more free throws.
The Celtics only attempted 15 free throws in the loss to the Timberwolves. While they could complain about that, they might have still come away with the win if they had gone perfect from the line. The Celtics connected on just nine of those 15 attempts. Of their six misses, four came in the fourth quarter.
Despite the Celtics’ failures at the charity stripe, they were only down three in the final 30 seconds. They just needed a stop to have a chance to tie the game, but Anthony Edwards hit a ridiculous three-pointer after briefly losing his dribble to put them away for good.
While that was a bit of a lucky shot, the Celtics had no answers for Edwards for much of the night. He finished with 39 points (12-24 FG), two rebounds, five assists, and one block to power the Timberwolves to victory.
The Celtics, meanwhile, were led by Jaylen Brown, who put up 41 points (17-32 FG), six rebounds, seven assists, five steals, and one block in the contest. It was Brown’s best game of the season, but it didn’t prove to be enough in the end.
The Celtics have now dropped to 10-9 on the season and are ninth in the East. They take on the Cleveland Cavaliers next at Rocket Arena on Sunday at 6 PM ET.
