Jaylen Brown on controversial missed call in Celtics loss to Jazz: “That’s nonsense***”
Jaylen Brown was great. He had scored 11 of his team-best 36 points in the fourth quarter for the Celtics on Monday night, doing the heavy lifting in erasing a double-digit deficit against the visiting Jazz. With Boston leading by one after a technical free throw by Derrick White, Brown had the ball and a chance to sink a dagger into Utah’s heart in the final minute.
That’s not how things happened.
After taking a block from White to set up a favorable matchup against Keyonte George, Brown prepared to attack in isolation from midcourt with five seconds remaining on the clock. As George went out to defend himself, the Jazz guard slipped, fell and sat on the hardwood, his legs splayed in front of him. Brown, dribbling to his right, tripped over George’s legs, falling to the ground himself and losing control of the ball.
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Brown, and presumably every other person inside the TD Garden, was expecting a whistle: a foul on George, a move to the line for Brown, a chance to extend the Celtics with a pair of free throws.
There was no whistle.
Instead, the game continued. Speedy Jazz rookie Walter Clayton Jr. picked up the loose ball, charged in transition and lobbed a late alley-oop from forward Lauri Markkanen, giving the Jazz a 103-102 lead with 44.4 seconds remaining — and leaving Brown fuming.
The Celtics still had a chance to prevail, with center Neemias Queta fouling Utah big man Jusuf Nurkić and heading to the line for two free throws with 24.8 seconds left. Queta, however, split the pair, knotting the score at 103 and giving one last look to the Jazz… who, thanks to Nurkić, were transformed into two:
Nurkić’s offensive rebound and rebound put Utah back in front with 0.6 seconds left on the game clock — enough time for Boston to attempt a final catch-and-shoot look. IC never got that shot off: Brown was called for an offensive foul for shoving Jazz defender Taylor Hendricks, sinking Boston’s last gasp and giving Utah a 105-103 victory.
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After the loss, a frustrated Brown offered his perspective on the missed call after the game:
“Dude, you’re all going to get fined,” he told reporters. “Because you can’t make a mistake like that, as a referee, at that point in the game. It’s the fourth quarter. There’s a minute left in the game, or less. And you completely – the whole staff makes a fucking call, you know what I mean? It cost us the game. Unacceptable.”
“You can make mistakes at any point in the game, but right there? That wasn’t good. That’s unacceptable. And then they’re like, ‘Aw, we didn’t see that.’ Like, how did none of you see this? You can’t trip someone in the fourth quarter and then just be a no-call. That’s bullshit.”
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After the game, pool reporter Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe asked officiating crew chief Kevin Scott for clarification on how the officials saw that revealing play and why George wasn’t called for a foul:
With about 47 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Keyonte George fell in front of Jaylen Brown, who was driving to the basket. Brown then fell on George, but no foul was called. What was your opinion on this play and why was no foul called on George?
SCOTT: During live play, the crew observed George slip and fall just before Brown slipped in the same spot, resulting in the ball coming loose before any contact.
During live play that was your opinion. Have you had a chance to watch it? Is this still your vision of the matter?
SCOTT: This is still my view after being in the room live.
SCOTT: Because the crew observed both players slip and fall before any contact. That’s why no fouls were called during live play.
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Reasonable people can disagree that one of Brown’s feet began to come out from under him before he made contact with the seated George. (I’d say the slow-motion replays I see don’t necessarily support the refs’ case, but hey, I work from Brooklyn, not Secaucus.) What’s not up for debate, though: the Celtics’ continued struggles on the defensive glass.
The game-winning rebound was Nurkić’s fourth offensive rebound of the night and Utah’s fifteenth as a team. Only the Hawks and Suns allow more offensive rebounds per game than the C’s; only those two teams plus the Pistons and 76ers are giving up more second chance points per game; and only the winless Nets have a lower defensive rebounding rate than Joe Mazzulla’s team.
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Everyone knew that controlling the interior would be a problem for Boston after saying goodbye to Kristaps Porziņģis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet in the offseason, and without Jayson Tatum in the fold to run back from the wing and attack the boards. Added to all this was a night of brutal shooting: 11 of 51 from long range, 40 3 missed points and you have a recipe for a second straight loss, dropping Boston to 3-5 on the season.
“We will never be in the top five [in rebounding]”, Mazzulla told reporters after the match. “But we have to improve. It’s a combination that we have to get and we have to compensate in other areas to be better, whether it’s shooting, turnovers, offensive rebounds. We just have to fight to be better at it.”