According to a source, the NBA has reportedly overturned Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla’s second technical foul during the team’s contest with the Chicago Bulls. He won’t be penalized any longer for the second tech, and the expulsion he got was also lifted.
With little under five minutes remaining in the third quarter, Mazzulla was ejected. Although he threw the ball through the air in protest of a ruling, Bulls center Nikola Vucevic was not given a technical foul. Jayson Tatum asserted that Vucevic’s move was comparable to the one he had been called earlier in the day.
Mazzulla received a technical foul for arguing as he attempted to support Tatum, according to referee Marc Davis. Then, when Mazzulla didn’t leave the court promptly, Davis quickly issued him another technical foul, ejecting him from the contest.
In the league’s official Pool Report, Davis explained the ejection:
“At 4:53 in the [third] quarter, after receiving a warning, he enters the court, makes crude remarks, and is given his first technical foul. He doesn’t get up off the floor and keeps yelling, so he receives his second technical penalty and is dismissed following the rules.
Following the game, Mazzulla claimed that he did not yell at the officials and that he “was only trying to grab the referee’s attention” across the court. Mazzulla said he has to “have more calmness under the circumstances” despite this.
The team overturned Mazzulla’s dismissal, but Celtics forward Grant Williams was given an extra penalty for his behavior. The NBA gave Williams a one-game suspension for “carelessly approaching and using disrespectful words toward a game referee.”
Williams raced toward the sidelines to argue a ruling, but he ran into referee Cheryl Flores, who immediately disqualified him from the game.
Friday’s matchup between Boston and the Cleveland Cavaliers will begin at 7:30 p.m. ET.