Celtics

“I’m just not sure that Jayson Tatum and Joe Mazzulla and Jaylen Brown are gonna love when Kendrick Perkins shows up.”

The beef between former Celtics champions Kendrick Perkins and Brian Scalabrine continued on Wednesday.

Scalabrine sparked the drama last week when noting on SiriusXM Radio that Perkins isn’t exactly welcomed by his former team — especially given the outspoken ESPN personality’s track record of criticizing the Celtics over the years. 

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Scalabrine said when asked if Perkins was invited to the Celtics’ latest championship parade on Friday. “Big scarlet letter. … It’s not really an open-arms thing with Kendrick Perkins.”

Speaking earlier this week, Scalabrine doubled down on his claim that Perkins is persona non grata in Boston given his harsh comments about Joe Mazzulla, Jayson Tatum, and the rest of the Celtics. 

In particular, Scalabrine singled out Perkins’ criticism of Mazzulla from earlier this season — with the former Celtics center calling out the Celtics coach’s IQ and overall approach. 

“They have two Joe Mazzullas,” Perkins said. “They have the one that got the philosophy of ‘we’re going to get up more 3s than you.’ When they hit them, he looks great.”

“Then you have the other Joe Mazzulla, who just stands over there,” Perkins added. “And you wonder, if you take his brain out and you put it in a bird, the bird is going to start flying backward. You got that Joe Mazzulla.”

Given that Mazzulla himself offered up a subtle jab at Perkins weeks later, Scalabrine doesn’t believe that Perkins would be a popular figure with this current Celtics roster. 

“I think the comments about Joe Mazzulla were out of hand,” Scalabrine said on the “Courtside Club” podcast. “You can’t call the coach of the Boston Celtics a dodo bird. You just can’t do that. Look, I don’t know for a fact that organization is like, ‘Nah, we don’t want nothing to do with Kendrick Perkins.’ 

“Anybody else from ’08, anybody else from back in the day, there’s old-timers coming through all the time. I’m just not sure that Jayson Tatum and Joe Mazzulla and Jaylen Brown are gonna love when Kendrick Perkins shows up. I’m just not sure about that.”

It didn’t take long for Perkins to respond to Scalbrine’s initial comments about him — labeling Scalabrine a “coward” while calling into 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Felger and Mazz” on Monday. 

“Right now, I feel like you’re ducking me,” Perkins added of Scalabrine. “I got a problem with that. We can’t have a grown-man conversation?”

Speaking on the “Courtside Club”, Scalabrine said that he doesn’t hold any hard feelings toward Perkins.

“We won a championship together, I don’t have a problem with Kendrick Perkins,” Scalabrine said. “I’m not sure if the organization looks at Kendrick Perkins and has, like, an open-arm policy. That’s it.”