Joe Mazzulla Makes Admission After Controversial Move in Celtics’ Loss to Knicks

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Matt John | Last updated May 8, 2025 3:49 PM ET

The Boston Celtics are down 2-0 against the New York Knicks. Not only that, but the Celtics puzzlingly lost the first two games in Boston, and they lost both in pretty much the exact same fashion.

Among everything that has gone wrong for the Celtics two games into this series, one of the more controversial decisions has been to intentionally foul Mitchell Robinson because the Knicks center is a poor free throw shooter. While Robinson has proven Joe Mazzulla right, it clearly hasn't hurt the Knicks all that badly.

Mazzulla tried Hack-a-Robinson in both Games 1 and 2, and while he couldn't make the Celtics pay, the Knicks still were within reach of the games regardless. In fact, intentionally getting the Celtics into foul trouble played a role in how the Knicks have come back to beat them twice.

While talking with reporters on Thursday, Mazzulla acknowledged that Robinson has contributed to the Knicks' beating of the Celtics and admitted what he'll do to counteract that.

"He’s a huge factor to what they do and I’m going to find ways to negate that," Mazzulla said, per The Athletic's Jay King.

At the end of a quote explaining why Mitchell Robinson has made such a big impact in this series, Joe Mazzulla said, "He’s a huge factor to what they do and I’m going to find ways to negate that."
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) May 8, 2025

Something else to note is that while the Celtics beat the Knicks all four times they faced off against them in the regular season, Robinson appeared in only the last one, which was the only game the Celtics didn't win by double digits.

It's clear Robinson makes a difference in this matchup, but what makes the decision to foul him so odd is that the Knicks haven't really had much of an advantage on the Celtics offensively in this series, so fouling Robinson doesn't seem all too necessary.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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