Joe Mazzulla Raises Psychotic (But Reasonable) NBA Rule Proposals

Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla is plenty unique from the sidelines with a clipboard, but in the hypothetical scenario where “Psycho Joe” replaces Adam Silver as league commissioner, the NBA would be a significantly different product.

For better or worse? That’s up for interpretation.

For Mazzulla, there are a few ways the league should consider re-tweaking the rules to amplify the entertainment value for viewers in attendance and at home, which draws inspiration from other major sports. Overall, it’s a unique and controversial way to look at professional basketball from a product-selling standpoint, but then again, both those adjectives align perfectly with Mazzulla’s sideline philosophy.

“Basketball’s one of the only sports that doesn’t have a power play,” Mazzulla told 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Zolak & Bertrand” on Monday. “And I think soccer just put in the blue card where a guy has to go off when it’s 10-on-9. So we should have a power play where — because let’s say you get a technical or let’s say you get a take foul, you’d get the one shot but you’re not really rewarded for that because if you miss it, you don’t get the reward for the take foul. You know what I mean? So there should be like a power play where on a take foul, on a technical you have to play 5-on-4 for five seconds or three passes.”

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Players in hockey are sent off the ice for a two-minute penalty, giving their opposing team an advantage until that brief timeout sentence is over. Then again, the physicality component — shoving opponents into the boards and dropping the gloves at any moment — adds a much different in-game environment to what basketball players are accustomed to. Mazzulla understands that completely, leading the third-year Celtics coach to his second major rule change proposal: fighting.

Mazzulla, an avid jiu-jitsu practitioner since his childhood karate days, believes there’s a physicality component missing in the NBA; one that you’ll find across every other major sport. In hockey, there are 1-on-1 fisticuffs. In baseball, benches can clear at any moment, and football is football.

However, the NBA’s landscape peak in terms of roughhousing came in the late ’80s and early ’90s, best epitomized by the notorious Detroit “Bad Boy” Pistons.

“The biggest thing that we rob people of from an entertainment standpoint is you can’t fight anymore,” Mazzulla said, per 98.5 The Sports Hub. “We should just bring back fighting. You wanna talk about robbing the league of entertainment; what’s more entertaining than a little scuffle? How come in baseball they’re allowed to throw their benches? How come in hockey — I don’t understand.”

Mazzulla added: “I just don’t get why some sports are allowed to clear the benches. They have bats and weapons. We don’t. We have a ball.”

Will Silver and the rest of the league’s higher powers consider Mazzulla’s ideas? Probably not. As much as fans might want to see Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown square up with their next hard foul committee — or Steve Kerr — it’s not a proposal anyone should bank on coming to life anytime soon.