Celtics' Jaylen Brown rips officials over non-call in loss to Jazz
by Ryan Miller kslcom · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- Jaylen Brown criticized officials for a non-call in Celtics' loss to Jazz.
- Officials ruled both Jaylen Brown and Keyonte George slipped before contact was made.
- The controversial no-call led to a Jazz win with a late game-deciding play.
BOSTON — Jaylen Brown ripped the officials over a non-call following the Utah Jazz's 105-103 win over the Boston Celtics Monday at TD Garden.
In the game's final minute, Jazz guard Keyonte George slipped on the floor and appeared to trip up Brown as the Celtics star attempted to make a move.
Officials, though, saw it differently; no foul was called.
Jazz rookie Walter Clayton Jr. picked up the loose ball and threw an alley-oop to Lauri Markkanen on the other end to give the Jazz a 103-102 lead with 44 seconds remaining in the game.
"Man, y'all are going to get me fined, because you can't have a mistake like that as an official at that point in the game," Brown said when asked about the controversial no-call. "It's the fourth quarter. There's a minute left in the game or less. And you completely — the whole staff blows the (expletive) call, you know what I mean? It cost us the game. Unacceptable."
Yeah, that'll probably get him fined.
After the game, crew chief Kevin Scott said "the crew observed George slip and fall just prior to Brown slipping on the same spot, resulting in the ball becoming loose prior to any contact."
When asked why it wasn't a foul, even though contact was made, Scott reiterated the point that both George and Brown had slipped.
"The crew observed both players slip and fall prior to any contact," the official said. "That's why a foul was not called during live play."
That explanation didn't ease the frustrations of Brown or Celtics fans, who clearly felt the Jazz got away with one in a key possession of the game.
The Celtics had the ball with a 1-point lead. Next thing they knew, the Jazz had an easy go-ahead bucket on the other end.
"You can make mistakes at any point of the game, but right there, that wasn't good," Brown said. "That wasn't good. That was unacceptable. And then they're telling me like, 'Aw, we didn't see it.' How did none of you see it? You can't trip somebody in the fourth quarter and then just be a no-call. It's some bull (expletive)."
It was a part of a chaotic finish that included lead changes and multiple other bodies hitting the deck. Heck, one possession resembled a slip-and-slide because so many players were falling and sliding on the floor.
"(Chris) Boucher fell and kinda slid, and then three possessions people were sliding," Jazz guard Elijah Harkless said. "It was crazy."
Maybe even crazier? None of the slides resulted in whistles, with the officials letting things go.
The Jazz, at least, were happy with that.
"I mean, it's the Garden, man — it's an old gym," Jazz center Jusuf Nurkic said, half-smiling. "Like, sometimes it just happens. Sometimes they'd be calling some stuff like that, but I'm glad they let it play."
Especially because it led to a Utah win.
With 0.6 seconds left, Nurkic rebounded a Keyonte George miss and laid it back in to give Utah a 2-point lead. Harkless then drew a foul on Boston's ensuing inbounds play to secure the win.
The refs called that one.
The Celtics left wishing they had called another.
As for the Jazz ... well, they'll take the win.
"That's who we have to be. We're going to have to win ugly," Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "We're going to have to win close."
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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Ryan Miller
KSL.com Utah Jazz reporter