Jaylen Brown minced no words when he called out the referees after the Boston Celtics went down 117-108 to the Chicago Bulls at the TD Garden on Thursday. The game wasn’t without drama with plenty of tech fouls being slapped. This had Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla cheesed off at the officials as the contest ended.
While Mazzulla kept his calm, Brown was in no mood to relent as he launched a scathing attack on the officiating crew.
“Jaylen Brown said he got a tech for telling the refs the tech on Joe was for no reason: He said, ‘If you say it to me again, I’ll call another tech. Then he called the tech. Like, man, get out of here. You can’t threaten guys with a technical foul. That’s not part of the game either.'”
While Boston was visibly frustrated with how the game was called, the loss does come off as a sting against a rebuilding Bulls side that’s still not looked at as a playoff contender. On the numbers front, Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with a team-high 31-point double-double with 10 rebounds. Jaylen Brown had 19 points and four assists. However, the Bulls proved to be the better team winning the contest.
Jaylen Brown had asked for more player control earlier in the season
Earlier last week, Jaylen Brown was slapped with a $25,000 fine last week as a penalty for his throat-slash celebration after a dunk during their win over the Detroit Pistons. Per NBC Sports Boston, the money was the most the wing was fined since he forayed into the league in 2016. When speaking to the media about the shebang, he responded:
“Behind the scenes, we have a lot of great people who fight for that to make sure the players feel empowered and stuff like that. But some of that stuff is not as concrete as we would like it to be, as I would like it to be. It goes a lot of times to the NBA’s charities or whatever they support. But as players, we should have a little more control over where our fine dollars go.”
Jaylen Brown and the Celtics hit the road for a trip to the Windy City as they play the second game of the series against the Bulls. Only time will tell if the refereeing will be an improvement in the days to come.