Joe Mazzulla continues to be an absolute basketball sicko.
The Boston Celtics faced off on Tuesday against the New York Knicks at TD Garden in Boston, Mass. As his team went down double digits in the first quarter, the Celtics head coach Mazzulla pulled a bizarre move out of his bag.
Mazzulla called for Boston to start intentionally fouling Knicks center Mitchell Robinson, a notoriously poor free-throw shooter. As a result, Robinson shot four total foul shots in the first quarter, making just one of them.
Joe Mazzulla is a psychopath lmao, the Celtics are hacking Mitchell Robinson in the 1st quarter pic.twitter.com/mW4u1mpFCK
— Italo Santana (@BulletClubIta) December 3, 2025
“Hack-A-Robinson” is nothing new as the seven-footer is a career 51.6 percent free-throw shooter. In fact, he Celtics themselves had a lot of success last season weaponizing the move against the Knicks.
But the hacking ploy is usually only seen during the playoffs, when the game slows down and strategy becomes of the utmost importance. You certainly do not normally see a team hacking an opponent during a regular season game in early December (and in the very first quarter, no less).
That said, Mazzulla, the 37-year-old ex-NBA champion head coach, continues to be one of the biggest characters in the entire league. After all, this is the same guy who even wanted all the smoke during the preseason this year.