Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla was not bothered by Pat Riley’s trash talk toward his team on Sunday. If anything, it was the opposite.
The Los Angeles Lakers unveiled a statue of Riley prior to Sunday’s rivalry game with Boston at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, and honored his contributions to the franchise. Riley closed his speech by exhorting the Lakers to “kick some Boston a–” during the game.
When told of the comments, Mazzulla sounded legitimately disappointed that he had not heard them.
“He said that?” Mazzulla asked, via Brian Robb of MassLive. “I wish I would have heard that. That’s fun, that’s awesome. Damn.”
Mazzulla is known for hunting for motivational material for his team. Then again, he might just think it’s pretty cool that a legend like Riley would care enough to trash the Celtics, even when taking into account the historic rivalry between the two franchises. There was definitely something old school about the comment, especially since Riley no longer has any formal ties to the Lakers.
Mazzulla’s mood was no doubt helped by the fact that the Lakers failed to follow Riley’s lead. The Celtics notched a 111-89 win led by 32 points from Jaylen Brown and a 30 point explosion from Payton Pritchard.
