Jaylen Brown had one of his worst games of the season on Tuesday night, scoring 13 points as the Boston Celtics beat the Philadelphia 76ers 123-101 in a heated early-season clash at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Almost all the fans in the arena rose to their feet when Brown received the ball on one wing and matched up with Jayson Tatum early in the first quarter. Brown took two dribbles, tried a spin move, stumbled and lost the ball out of bounds. He fouled Tatum seconds later on the next possession while still arguing with an official about a call he believed had been missed on the previous play.
That sequence set the tone for a difficult night for Brown. He had spent weeks in back-and-forth exchanges with Tatum, including a proclamation that there was no beef between them but “a little lamb chops and some gravy.” Brown finished with 13 points, five rebounds, four turnovers and a game-worst minus-27.
Pre-game tension
Brown said days before the game that he did not plan to speak to Tatum, his teammate for nine years in Boston, with whom he won a title in 2024. Brown was traded this offseason.
“Nothing to talk about,” Brown said. Moments before tipoff, Tatum did not appear to accept that message. He headed towards Brown at midcourt, where Brown was spinning a basketball, looking for a dap. Tatum eventually tapped Brown’s chest, but Brown acted as if Tatum was not there. Tatum moved on and shook hands with Sixers forward LeBron James, who stood next to Brown.
When asked about the moment afterwards, Brown sidestepped the question.
“I’m just focused on doing what’s best for my team,” Brown said. “Everything else was just, to be honest, I wasn’t paying attention, but credit to Jayson; he played well tonight.”
Tatum also sidestepped the hype surrounding their first post-trade matchup. “No headlines about anything like that,” he said. “I was just getting ready for the game, ready for jump ball, go out there, compete, have some fun and try to get a win.”
Foul trouble derails Brown
Brown had been enjoying his best stretch of the season heading into the game. He scored a season-high 30 points in a win over Detroit and followed that with 29 points in Sunday’s win over the Bulls. He appeared to be finding a rhythm with his new team, but that did not carry over on Tuesday.
The game was also unusually foul-heavy for Brown. After the initial foul on Tatum, he picked up a charging foul while running over Derrick White, and he begged the Sixers’ sideline to challenge the call without success. He landed on the bench with just over five minutes remaining in the first quarter, in foul trouble. It was his first game with multiple first-quarter fouls this season. He had not committed more than two fouls in a first half with Philadelphia. He finished with four fouls, the last of which came with 10:40 remaining in the third quarter after a reaching call.
Celtics coach Nick Nurse was blunt in his assessment. “He had a tough night,” Nurse said.
Brown admitted to frustration. “I’m a bit frustrated, honestly,” he said.
On the surface, the emotion of the matchup appeared to have got the better of him. Brown pushed back on that idea after the game.
“I didn’t have any emotion. I was locked in. I was focused, I was ready to go,” Brown said. “Foul trouble kind of took me out of my rhythm a little bit. I had to sit for a while, and we didn’t execute as well as they did.”