"I Would’ve Knocked The Hell Out Of Him, I’m Not Gonna Lie" - Charles Barkley Crying About Joe Mazzulla Contesting A Shot After The Whistle Is Incredibly Sad

Charles Barkley calls out Joe Mazzulla for trying to block Royce O’Neale’s shot “I would’ve knocked the hell out of him, I’m not gonna lie. I would’ve hit him … I’ma tell you why I don’t like it. What if he stepped on his ankle and hurt himself badly. He can’t do that, come on, man.”  (h/t @DimeUPROXX)

Holy shit Chuck, I promise you it's not that serious. Leading by example, ever heard of it? As I blogged this morning, that's all Joe was doing at that moment. He never asks his players to do something he'd never do himself

Where I come from that's called leading from the front. I'm not sure what Chuck thought he was accomplishing with that take, but all I took away from it is he's apparently soft as hell. Oh, you'd beat his ass? OK Chuck. Good luck with that considering Joe Mazzulla studies jiu-jitsu in his spare time. Joe would handle the Round Mound of Rebound without breaking a sweat.

Also, what if he stepped on his ankle? I know Chuck doesn't watch the Celtics before he talks about them, I mean we all hear him on TNT

so it's no surprise he probably didn't even watch the play. Look at where Joe lands. It's nowhere close to Royce O'Neale's landing space! Not only does he land in front of O'Neale, there's like a foot of space between them. Talk about being soft.

Meanwhile, this is the same guy who talks about how soft this generation of NBA players are. Seems a bit hypocritical to me. I'm curious, do we hear Chuck complain about when players challenge end of quarter heaves like this? Is there not this supposed injury risk on those players too? Joe Mazzulla is a basketball psycho. He's looking for anything and everything he can do to help his team win. What if O'Neale hits that prayer and catches a rhythm? For all we know that could have been the difference in the game. 

But as we've come to experience this season, this is really just par for the course when it comes to the Celts and their national media coverage. It's hell. And I'm not saying I need Chuck and other national pundits to tell me how good the Celtics are, I have eyes and a 66 game sample that does just fine. It's just very funny that a former Sixer, who has never been shy of his dislike of the Celtics, always somehow how something negative to say about them. Whenever they do well, he discredits it. Whenever they lose, it's actually who they are. 

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Wash, rinse, repeat.

Last night was a perfect example too. The Celts went an insane 25-50 from three in their route over the Suns. What was Chuck and the TNT's crew's takeaway?

"Sure they made all these 3s, but they would have lost had they shot 10-50!"

I almost spit out my coffee that I wasn't even drinking when I heard it. The thing is the Celts have been so consistently good this season that these analysts don't know how to act or even what to say. All they can do is throw out these random hypotheticals either about their performance or this latest one, about how they'd kick Joe's ass for contesting a shot.

I'll tell you what I do know. If this situation happened with a coach and a team Chuck likes, he would not have that same stance. He's never been a Mazzulla guy (and been open about it) so this is just par for the course. 

All you can do is laugh at this point, and I cannot wait until Joe is asked about this at his next presser. My guess is he's going to challenge Chuck on the spot to some sort of jiu-jitsu match (??) because if I know one thing, it's that Psycho Joe is not afraid of Charles Barkley.