Raptors Sound Off on Joe Mazzulla's Late-Game Challenge: 'You Shouldn't Disrespect Us'

The Toronto Raptors were not happy with Joe Mazzulla's decision to challenge a call in Saturday's blowout loss to the Boston Celtics

If there are unwritten rules in the NBA regarding sportsmanship in blowouts, the Boston Celtics don’t quite abide by them.

Up 27 points with 3:39 in the fourth quarter, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla challenged an out-of-bounds call that had gone against Boston. In fairness, he was right, and the call was overturned after a brief delay.

But the Toronto Raptors weren’t happy.

Raptors coach Darko Rajaković made it known during the game, walking over to Mazzulla to confront the Celtics’ coach as the review took place.

By that point, both teams had emptied their benches and were — with the exception of Mazzulla — just trying to wrap the game up as quickly as possible. But for Mazzulla, it was a chance to show his end-of-the-bench players that he’s still going to coach them even when the game is out of hand.

“I think my responsibility is to my players first and it was a clear opportunity for me to empower the players, let them know that I'm coaching you and those minutes to me are just as important as the start of the game,” he told reporters post-game.

Asked about the moment post-game, Rajaković replied with a “no comment,” unwilling to discuss his confrontation with Mazzulla.

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Jakob Poeltl said he didn’t care much about the challenge, though admitted he wouldn’t have challenged the call had he been in Mazzulla’s shoes.

It was Dennis Schröder, the former Celtic who played under Mazzulla when Mazzula was an assistant coach for Boston in 2021-22, who was the most upset with the decision.

“Up 30 you're not supposed to challenge nothing. You won, it's three minutes left,” he told Gary Washburn. “You shouldn't disrespect us like that.”

It won’t be long before the teams see each other again as the Celtics will head to Toronto on Friday night for a date at Scotiabank Arena.