The Boston Celtics were eliminated by the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, prompting some intriguing comments from star Jaylen Brown.
Brown, one of the better players in the NBA, didn’t exactly have the best series.
After the series, he took to a Twitch live stream to complain about the referees, and he’s since been fined for his actions, according to Shams Charania of ESPN.
“The NBA has fined Boston’s Jaylen Brown $50,000 for his comments criticizing the referees during a live stream after Game 7 and the series loss in the first round against the Philadelphia 76ers, sources tell ESPN,” he wrote.
Brown has been outspoken about different issues in the past, but his comments about the referees were bound to get him fined, as he let them have it during the live stream.
He went as far as to say that when he makes certain moves, referees are more likely to call offensive fouls on him while allowing other players to get away with similar contact.
“Every good basketball player does this. What are y’all talking about? They clearly had an agenda,” Brown said, per ESPN. “If Jaylen does this move, call the offensive foul and foul him every time. I don’t know if it’s because I pissed the refs off. I’ve been critical about them, and I called them out a bunch of times. So they were like, ‘You know what, I got you in the playoffs. Watch this.’ Because that’s exactly what they did.
“It’s clearly an agenda. Look at the same move. Some referees, if I had to choose, if I had to say it, there are some referees that need to be investigated. We had three of them in the last three games.”
There was clearly frustration behind Brown’s comments, which makes sense considering his team had just been eliminated, but those remarks have now cost him $50,000.
