Mazzulla explained his thought process postgame, discussing the challenge:
“I don’t know if it was disrespectful or cheap to challenge in that situation,” Mazzulla said. “I don’t really agree or disagree. I think at the end of the day, my responsibility is to my players first, and having respect for the game. We’ve been in that situation before where we don’t shoot the last shot, we let the clock go out. We do that all the time.
“But with three-and-a-half minutes to go — and you have a group of guys that check in and they are playing as hard as they can — I think it’s my responsibility to my players first. 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. That’s what I told my players: I’ll always put them first.”
We siding with you coach fuck Shroeder lmao crybaby ass
Not only does it send a message to our bench, but I think it sends a message to the refs.
I’m sure the league looks at the statistics for successful challenges, and I think the Cs have been poorly reffed all season.
Having tangible evidence to go back to the league on can’t hurt. That was an aggression call and I believe one ref overruled another on it. What exactly did they see, because he clearly didn’t touch the ball.
After seeing this team blow multiple 20+ point leads late in games, always letting teams back in, including sometimes needing to bring starters back in to actually make sure we win the game…
Toronto can fuck off. They were still playing at max effort with their rotation players in. A shitty call that gives them the ball, a couple three’s, a lazy turnover from us and an and-1 and we are right back in a game.
I respect them for not giving up, but they can’t have it both ways. Either we’re still playing, or they can take their starters out and so can we. If they’re still trying to come back, there is no “unwritten rule” that we have to stop. We’ve seen it blow up in our faces far too many times.