Mazzulla’s Wild NBA Rules Proposals Include Power Plays, In-Play Fights originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
There is few minds work like Joe Mazzulla’s. Predictably, the wheels immediately started turning when the Boston Celtics head coach was asked Tuesday what rule changes he would like to see in the NBA.
Marc Bertrand, co-host of 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Zolak and Bertrandbegan the exchange Tuesday by asking Mazzulla what he thought about a radical proposal to eliminate the corner 3-pointer by having the 3-point line end about seven feet from the baseline.
Mazzulla countered with an even more radical proposition: a power play.
“Basketball is one of the only sports that doesn’t have a power play,” Mazzulla said, as seen in the video player above. “…Let’s say you get a technical foul or let’s say you get a foul, you get the one shot, but you don’t really get rewarded for it, because if you miss it, you don’t get the reward to take it a foul.
“So there should be a power play where, on a technical foul, you have to play five-on-four for five seconds or three assists.”
In hockey, players must go to the penalty box for two minutes while their team is playing shorthanded. Mazzulla would like to see a similar setup in basketball, but with a shorter time frame and the player serving his “penalty” on the other side of the court.
“I think we should institute power plays where instead of taking the ball out to the side, if you foul, the guy goes to the other side of half court, and he can’t leave the circle from half court before about three seconds,” Mazzulla said.
It’s a pretty creative proposal, although there’s very little chance the NBA will consider such a drastic change in the near future. But we imagine Commissioner Adam Silver would prefer Mazzulla’s power play over the coach’s other rule change suggestion.
“The biggest thing we’re depriving people of from an entertainment standpoint is that they can’t fight anymore,” Mazzulla said. “We should bring back the fighting.
“I mean, if you want to talk about depriving the league of entertainment, what’s more entertaining than a little fight? How come in baseball they’re allowed to empty the benches? How come ‘in hockey, they’re allowed to (fight)? And every time someone gets clubbed, you don’t have to go to the monitor to see if a crime has been committed.’
If you know anything about Mazzulla, it’s right up there with the Celtics coach, who regularly practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and loves combat sports.
“I just don’t understand why some sports are allowed to vacate the benches,” Mazzulla added. “They have bats and guns. We don’t have any, we only have a ball. I mean, the other sport has one of the hardest surface playing instruments, a puck and sticks, and yet we’re not allowed to throw a little?”
It’s unclear if Mazzulla will be invited to the next NBA Rules Committee meeting, but we’d pay to see him present some of these ideas to Silver and Co.
