The Boston Celtics shifted their attention from the Chicago Bulls to the referees in their loss Thursday.
The Celtics paid the price for it, too, in more ways than one. Joe Mazzulla, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum were all assessed technical fouls in the fourth quarter as the Celtics unraveled down the stretch in the 117-108 loss to the inferior Bulls.
This isn’t the first time the Celtics took their eye off the ball and put more energy toward barking at the officials — they are far from the only NBA team to do this as it’s an epidemic across the league.
But the Celtics realize they need to make a change to how they treat referees and it was a talking point among the team heading into Saturday night’s rematch with the Bulls in Chicago.
“Obviously, the game kind of after that just went downhill from there. There’s both sides to that. The refs aren’t perfect and neither are we. So, maybe we need to learn to be better to control certain emotions even when a call ain’t the right call,” Celtics guard Payton Pritchard told reporters after shootaround, per CLNS Media’s Noa Dalzell. “That’s maybe a growth step we’ll take and in another situation like that we get better from it and we win the game that way and we don’t get three technicals.
“That’s what we talked about this morning. Refs ain’t going to be perfect, we’re not going to be perfect. So, let’s try to not harp on it too much. Just play the game the right away.”
If the Celtics can indeed pull that off, it will be refreshing. Too many times they get caught up in shouting at officials if they don’t get the call they want. Again, this problem isn’t exclusive to them.
Celtics star Jayson Tatum might be the worst offender of this. He leads the Celtics with five technical fouls.
Boston has a chance to turn over a new leaf Saturday against the Bulls. And if they can keep their minds off the officials — not only versus the Bulls but for the rest of the season — perhaps the Celtics can turn into an even bigger juggernaut.
