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Mazzulla offers insights on Skills Challenge debate, 4 Nations in dispute: NBC Sports Boston reports

Two events happened in the sports world Saturday night that both seemed right up Joe Mazzulla’s alley.

At the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in San Francisco, the San Antonio Spurs duo of Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama were disqualified from the Skills Challenge after trying to exploit a rules loophole by intentionally missing their shots to save time.

Meanwhile, at the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in Montreal, Team USA and Team Canada got into three fights in the first nine minutes of a thrilling matchup that had the physicality and intensity of a Stanley Cup Playoff game.

Mazzulla admitted he didn’t watch either event live, but you’d best believe the Boston Celtics head coach — who fully endorses rule manipulation and has advocated for allowing fighting in NBA games — has opinions about both subjects.

“I think it was UFC Fight Night Saturday night, so I was locked into that,” Mazzulla told 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Zolak & Bertrand on Wednesday during his weekly interview. “But I read about Chris Paul and Wembanyama doing that (in the Skills Challenge).

“I think that’s great. Anytime you can find a way to try to gain advantage, I think that’s important.”

Paul and Wembanyama were booed by the Chase Center crowd after their stunt Saturday night, and you could argue went against the spirit of the competition by not even trying to make their shots in an effort to save time. But if anyone would come to their defense, it’s Mazzulla, whose disregard for optics was on full display when he had his team intentionally foul Andre Drummond despite having a massive lead over the Chicago Bulls for the sake of point differential in the league’s in-season tournament.

As for the 4 Nations tournament, which will culminate Thursday night at TD Garden in Boston with a rematch between Team USA and Canada?

“Man, I bet that’s gonna be a great environment,” Mazzulla said. “I love that. I think it’s great for sports to have those type of rivalries and to have that type of environment, I think that’s great.

“I wish I could be in that environment.”

When asked if the NBA should try to institute a similar competition by pitting Americans against international players, Mazzulla referenced Netflix’s recently-released documentary “Court of Gold,” which follows the intensity of the men’s basketball tournament at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“We have that. It doesn’t show as often as some of the other sports, but I thought that documentary did a really good job of kind of capturing the pride of playing for the country and USA Basketball and what goes into that,” Mazzulla said.

“I think it’s hard from the standpoint of, we have so much diversity, and we’re made up of so many different people and nationalities. So, I think we do a good job of just bringing in everybody. So, it’s a little bit of a balance.

“But I thought that documentary did a great job of capturing the pride that the basketball players do have when they put on the USA jersey, and the ownership and the pressure that goes into it.”

Mazzulla then brought up a suggestion to change the NBA Cup that he mentioned earlier this season.

“To take it a step further, I like the idea of where the NBA Cup or the in-season tournament could potentially have international teams in there, which would bring a different level of pride and passion to it,” Mazzulla said. “That’s kind of the template that the Champions League has.”

Mazzulla is an avid follower of European soccer and has suggested on a few occasions that the NBA copy some of its rules, such as relegation. While those changes seem unlikely, we can always count on Mazzulla for innovative takes about the game.