Jaylen Brown and the 2023-24 NBA champions, the Boston Celtics, were eliminated in the first round of this season’s playoffs following a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers despite having an early 3-1 lead in the series.
Playing Game 7 without Jayson Tatum, the former Finals MVP took the offensive load on his shoulders and ended last night with 33 points, nine rebounds, four assists, and three blocks. He shot 12-27 from the field (44.4 FG%) and 3-9 from beyond the arc (33.3 3P%).
But that was not enough as the 76ers came away with a 109-100 win, courtesy of 30-point nights for Joel Embiid (34 points, 12 rebounds, six assists, 12-26 FG, 46.2 FG%) and Tyrese Maxey (30 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists, 11-18 FG, 61.1 FG%, 2-4 3P, 50.0 3P%).
Having slept on it for a day, Jaylen Brown went on his Twitch stream tonight and had some scathing hot takes following the Celtics’ first-round exit. He first criticized Joel Embiid for flopping and then admitted that he felt like the officials had put a target on his back over the playoffs.
“This is just my personal opinion on basketball; some of y’all might disagree, argue with your Grandma. Flopping has ruined our game,” Brown said.
“Joel Embiid is a great player. One of the best bigs in f—–g basketball history, flops! He knows it. This ain’t breaking news. It is what it is. I can clip it up, and y’all can use it on those paid bot accounts or whatever. That’s just my opinion.”
He doubled down on his take from the postgame press conference, where he called out Joel Embiid for being a bit Hollywood on the court. Over the last three wins, Embiid was 24-28 from the free-throw line. Just last night, he went to the line for 11 attempts and got 9 of his 34 points from there.
Joel Embiid spends half of his offensive possessions flopping to the ground for no reason.
Special talent, but hard to watch. pic.twitter.com/48jXc1afJa
— HeroOfTheDay (@Hero_OfThe_Day) May 3, 2026
This time, Brown also called out the referees for seemingly having an agenda against him throughout the series due to his previous criticism of officials.
“You know how many players do that? That’s a common basketball play, everybody does it, so why are you targeting me?” Brown said as he did a play-by-play analysis of Game 7 on his stream and spoke about a play that was called an offensive foul for a pushoff.
“They clearly had an agenda, maybe because I spoke so critically of them in the regular season. So you know how they responded? You’re going to lead the playoffs in offensive fouls. That was the response from the officiating crew, you can clearly tell.”
Jaylen Brown had 21 fouls drawn in this series, most of which he feels were on the offensive end.
“I actually spoke to some refs, and they told me there’s an agenda going on in each game. Every time Jaylen puts his hands up, from reputation, just call it. Paul George does the same thing, Jalen Brunson does the same thing. I can go down the list because it’s a basketball play, whether y’all believe it or not. Everybody does that when they drive, especially when they have bodies on you.”
“But Philly took advantage of that officiating, and it really cost us to some degree. But I’ve been doing that all regular season, and it was no problem. But now all of a sudden, it’s an offensive foul every time? You’ve got to keep that same energy with everybody else, that’s all I got to say,” Brown concluded.
Brown has been vocal about his criticisms of the officials. He also got fined after he called out the officials following a loss to the San Antonio Spurs in the regular season.
Maybe these comments could draw more such penalties from the league, but the Celtics star at this point does not care about that, as he felt an important point needed to be made.
As of now, neither Joel Embiid nor the league office has responded. It will certainly be interesting to see if Embiid or the league does something in the aftermath of these comments.
