After scoring 33 points in the Celtics’ Game 7 loss at home to the 76ers, Jaylen Brown took to Twitch to get everything off his chest before heading into the offseason. Much of it was positive after his MVP-level performance this year. Despite the early exit, he called the 56-win season the most fun he’s had in his career in what should be a First or Second Team All-NBA season.
However, he did have some choice words regarding the officiating of not just the series-clinching loss at TD Garden, but
on the state of the league and how flopping has become so prevalent with the game’s best players.
The NBA’s iconoclast has been on this crusade all year, most vocally after he was ejected from a much anticipated game against the San Antonio Spurs in March. CelticsBlog’s Gio Rivera has this from Brown’s stream:
Brown said Embiid routinely exaggerated contact, insisting it’s an epidemic affecting the NBA.
“It’s like when someone barely touched you, and you selling the call to make it seem like you just got shot by two police officers. Big difference. Whether you like it, don’t like it, your grandma like it, your grandma don’t like it. I don’t really care. That’s just my personal opinion on basketball. Some of y’all might disagree. Argue with your grandma. Flopping has ruined our game. Joel Embiid is a great player, one of the best bigs in f**king basketball history. He flops. He knows it. This ain’t breaking news.”
Yesterday, the league fined Brown $50,000 for “public criticism of the officiating” and hours after a Game 1 loss to the Detroit Pistons, the Cavaliers Donovan Mitchell had his back.
“A friend of mine got fined for talking about flopping,” Mitchell said of Brown’s comments. “I’m not trying to double down, but I feel like that’s what I got to do at this point. I’m trying to get downhill, trying to get to the bucket, sometimes people are in my way and I’m trying to fight through contact and I’m not getting these calls…I don’t know why. I don’t flop, maybe that’s why. This isn’t just a tonight thing. This has been the entire season. It’s frustrating —I’m such a dynamic driver — but I can’t control that.”
During the regular season, Brown was second in the league in drives at 9.1 per game with Mitchell trailing behind at 14.1. However, Brown was just ninth in free throw attempts and Mitchell was further down the list at 22nd.
You can bet that with Brown as one of the vice presidents of the NBPA and Mitchell serving as the player rep in Cleveland, the state of officiating will be a topic of discussion the next time the league’s competition committee meets this summer.
