Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan made it clear to the media postgame that he is no fan of the in-season tournament‘s point differential component and how that wrinkle in deciding tiebreakers caused the Boston Celtics to run the score up even when ahead by a virtually insurmountable lead in the Celtics’ 124-97 victory over the Bulls at TD Garden on this past Tuesday night.
“I didn’t like that,” he explained via MassLive’s Souichi Terada. But (Mazzulla) was great when we talked. I understand what they were trying to do. And listen, this is for the league. So I understand.”
“But this is what the league has done (now) that they’ve made this point differential thing (important).”
Celtics Lab 229: Assessing the East at the 2023-24 NBA season's quarter-mark with Ky Carlin https://t.co/GhCtpFeorG pic.twitter.com/lUkQPBlOCG
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) November 29, 2023
For his part, Mazzulla also apologized for the situation in his own postgame availability as well as to Donovan in-game. “I apologize(d) to Andre Drummond for doing that,” offered the second-year Celtics coach.
“But it gave us the best chance considering the circumstances we were in.”
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