Jaylen Brown was ejected from the Boston Celtics loss to the San Antonio Spurs Tuesday night after getting hit with two technical fouls for arguing a non-call.
The ejection came with about three-and-a-half minutes to play in the first half, leaving Boston without their best player this season. Brown was already up to eight points and seven assists in less than 15 minutes of play.
After the ejection, Brown took to X, posting “This the s--t I be talking about.” Brown did not comment after the game.
But his teammates and Joe Mazzulla did. So did the officials, who explained themselves in a pool report. Here is the full transcript of the interview between ESPN’s Michael Wright and Crew Chief Tyler Ford.
Wright : What did Jaylen Brown do to receive the first technical foul? Ford : For aggressively pointing and using profanity and resentment to the no call. Wright : What did Brown do to receive the second technical foul? Ford : He aggressively approached a game official while pointing and using profanity. Wright : Why was no foul called on the play before the first technical foul? Ford : In live play we did not observe any illegal contact.
That's typical of a pool report, but that's the official explanation. The fact that Ford wasn’t the one to eject Brown, it was Umpire Suyash Mehta who gave Brown his second technical, was the primary sticking point for people who disagreed with the decision.
An officiating crew is made up of a Crew Chief, Referee, and Umpire, who have declining amounts of responsibilities. The Crew Chief is the primary point of contact and the official who handles reviews, announcements, and other high-level responsibilities.
Mazzulla seized on this hierarchy to take a thinly-veiled shot at the officials after the game.
“I just give a ton of credit to my high school principal. He had the balls to throw a student out,” Mazzulla said. “He didn't leave it to the hall monitor.”
That's a shot at Ford, the principal in this scenario, and Mehta, the hall monitor. Mazzulla later added full-throated support to Brown, saying, “I understand completely where Jaylen is coming from, absolutely. And I got his back 100% I think he was 100% right to be frustrated and do what he did.”
White shared a similar sentiment, though it was more pointed.
“He definitely earned the first [tech],” Brown said. “I thought the second one was bulls--t, honestly. It was a passionate game, a high-level game. You can’t throw out a guy who has done so much for us all year … I thought that was ridiculous.”
Tatum agreed, and took it a step further, adding the element of what he perceives as hypocrisy from the league.
“The NBA makes a big deal about prime time games and stars playing and being available,” Tatum said. “The first tech was probably warranted, emotions are high. But the second tech, you gotta understand that it’s a national TV game, two of the best teams in the league, and you make a big deal about stars playing, and you get trigger-happy to throw somebody out of the game. I disagree with it.”
It’s a fair enough point to make. The league fines teams for holding players out of games like this, it would stand to reason that there be a little more leeway to keep a star in the game at that point.
It’s also not unheard of for officials to let a star burn himself out after the first tech. Again, Ford was the one in direct altercation with Brown, and he wasn’t the official who called the second tech. That will be the sticking point for people who believe Brown was unfairly ejected.
Brown has been fined $35,000 in the past for criticizing officials, for comments made after the last loss to the Spurs.