Joe Mazzulla’s Pro-NBA Brawl Stance Supported By Celtics Locker Room

The NBA is generations removed from the days when teams would unload their benches for a WWE “Royal Rumble”-like brawl, but Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla isn’t opposed to going back and time and neither is the locker room.

Mazzulla, when asked what rule changes he’d make if appointed as league commissioner, most notably advocated for the re-normalization of mid-game fighting. The third-year clipboard chief elaborated that for entertainment purposes, players should be able to square up much like we’re accustomed to watching in MLB and NHL games.

Inherently controversial for obvious reasons, Celtics guard Jrue Holiday doesn’t stand against Mazzulla’s (extremely) debatable take.

“Look, I’m with it. I’m with it,” Holiday told FanDuel’s “Run It Back” on Thursday. “Get your paws ready, all right? If we gotta get in the boxing gym, if we gotta get in the ring. You know Joe does jiu-jitsu so I really think he’s ready but to his point, back in the ’90s and the early 2000s like when people was scrapping and throwing hands, it was pretty entertaining. … I’m too old for that, but other people can have that.”

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We’ve seen the Detroit Pistons “Bad Boys” of the late 80s to early 90s, Larry Bird versus Julius Erving at the old Boston Garden in 1984, and perhaps the most notorious, the “Malice at the Palace” dust-up in 2004 between the Pistons and Indiana Pacers. Mazzulla, Holiday and everyone else on the Celtics aren’t accustomed to the previous free-for-all nature of the door being wide open for players taking matters into their own hands.

Under the current NBA rulebook, if a player does engage in a physical altercation the commissioner could fine said player up to $50,000 on top of a potential suspension. Golden State Warriors goon Draymond Green, the league’s current face of violence, has accumulated roughly $3.2 million in losses due to suspensions. Ironically enough, Green doesn’t support Mazzulla’s pro-fighting stance.

Mazzulla has an upper hand with years of martial arts training under his belt, as does Holiday. The two-time All-Star devotes a chunk of his offseason preparation by training in boxing facilities — although Holiday refuses to spar.

Holiday doesn’t expect Mazzulla’s opinion, or personality, to change anytime soon.

“Joe, he’s him,” Holiday explained, per FanDuel. “He’s gonna be like that in film. He’s gonna be like that while we’re going through schemes and plays. But he’s genuine and he’s genuinely himself and I think that when you know him, you can tell that he really cares and he really cares for people. He really cares about Celtics basketball. From the day I got here, he made it known what this was about; it was about being a Celtic and the legacy and winning championships and hanging banners.”

Whether or not fists are thrown by the Celtics this season, the reigning champions will have to fight to maintain their title, hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy again, and keep the dynasty door open for the next few years.