Jaylen Brown strongly disagreed with the technical foul he received in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s Celtics loss.
The Boston star was T’d by official Justin Van Duyne for arguing another technical foul that had been called on Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla moments earlier. Brown called the first tech “inadvertent” and said Van Duyne threatened him with the same punishment if he continued arguing.
Brown did, and Van Duyne called the technical, which gifted the visiting Bulls a second free throw. The back-to-back techs, followed immediately by a Zach LaVine 3-pointer, resulted in a swift five-point swing that ultimately buried the Celtics, who went on to lose 117-108.
In a postgame news conference, Brown ripped Van Duyne for his handling of the contentious sequence, calling it “bull—-.”
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I got fined a couple weeks ago for inadvertent gestures that are determined (to be) not a part of the game, which was fine. I took the fine (for making a throat-slash gesture after dunking on Detroit’s Isaiah Stewart). But what part of the game is a ref calling an inadvertent technical foul? And then I said to him, ‘You called a tech for no reason.’ He said, ‘If you say it to me again, I’m going to call another tech.’
“You call a tech for no reason, and then you (say that) — man, get out of here. You can’t threaten guys with a technical foul. That’s not part of the game, either. If you want to fine people for gestures and all this stuff, fine that. That is some (BS).
“We were down three at the time on the jump ball, and that led to us being down eight. That affects the game. That could have been avoided. Joe didn’t say anything to deserve a tech, and then when I come up to you and say, ‘You’re giving a tech for no reason,’ as a captain, before the game I come and shake all the refs’ hands because I speak for my team. I’m allowed to talk.
“So when I tell you you just called a tech for no reason, and you say ‘If you say it again, I’m going to call another tech,’ and I say it again and you call a tech, you just (used) your whistle as a threat. That’s not part of the game either. And I think it’s (BS).”
Head referee Tony Brothers told a pool reporter that Mazzulla was assessed a technical foul for walking “out of the coach’s box and on the floor” while arguing a controversial jump-ball call. Mazzulla, who also had to be held back by assistants while arguing with officials after the game, admitted he deserved his tech because he was “on the court.”
“The ref had to do his job,” Mazzulla said.
Brothers said Brown received his tech because he “questioned our integrity multiple times during that same sequence.” A subsequent technical foul on Jayson Tatum later in the quarter was “a respect-for-the-game technical for an overt action towards an official,” per Brothers.
Brown endured what he called a “tough week,” missing Celtics practice on Tuesday after his mother’s Wellesley home was broken into Sunday night. Intruders also broke into the house of Boston assistant coach Amile Jefferson.
“Obviously, my mother’s security is of the utmost importance to me, and that’s been compromised,” Brown said. “So it’s been a tough week. We’ve had, you know, media members and reporters outside our house trying to get an inside scoop. Like, have some respect. It’s been a tough week. I’m not gonna lie. … Thank God nothing serious or physical or threatening happened, but the fact that it could have just kind of lingers in your mind.”
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