Since retiring from the NBA, former Boston Celtics champion center Kendrick Perkins has made a career for himself as a successful analyst covering the league he used to play in. But he has also made a name for himself for takes that can get so spicy that they can seem a bit detached from reality. Such was the case with a recent comment made by the Texan big man on ESPN’s “NBA Countdown” regarding current Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla after a loss to the Denver Nuggets.
“They have two Joe Mazzullas,” said Perkins via MassLive’s Souichi Terada. “They have the one that got the philosophy of we’re going to get up more 3s than you.”
“When they hit them, he looks great. Then you have the other Joe Mazzulla, who just stands over there,” he continued.
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“You wonder if you take his brain out, and you put it in a bird, the bird is going to start flying backwards,” Big Perk continued, taking a strange shot at the Celtics head coach. “You got that Joe Mazzulla.”
“You know why I say that? It’s because he doesn’t get his guys easy looks,” he explained. “Time and time again, we kept saying, attack the paint. You have so many guys that are great at cutting. They cannot continue to play AAU style basketball all the time. You have got to have sets.”
But these issues are not unique to Mazzulla’s tenure, and go back as far as when Brad Stevens was still the head coach. It seems strange to put such responsibility on Mazzulla for such recurrent problems — and problems which have seemingly been reduced to when the Celtics play the NBA’s very best. Not ideal to be sure, but also improving — and not the coach’s fault.
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