Jaylen Brown calls out Grant Williams for ‘Ray Lewis’ hit on Jayson Tatum
"I thought JT and Grant were friends. I guess not."
Jaylen Brown wasn’t about to give Grant Williams a pass for his takedown of Jayson Tatum.
Williams, who played four seasons with Brown and Tatum in Boston, was ejected from Friday night’s Celtics-Hornets game after he knocked Tatum to the floor with a hard shoulder check.
Tatum avoided injury, and the Celtics went on to win 124-109, but Brown took his former teammate to task in his postgame news conference.
“I don’t know what that was about,” Brown told reporters in Charlotte. “I think that spoke for itself. I don’t know if Grant missed JT or I don’t know what that was, but that just wasn’t a basketball play. Grant knows better than that.”
He added: “Actions speak loud. It is what it is, we got the win, but there’s no place in the game for that. I thought JT and Grant were friends. I guess not.”
Brown called Williams’ hard foul “some (BS).” He believed it was “for sure intentional.”
“What are we talking about? Y’all see the same play that I was seeing?” Brown told reporters. “He hit him like it was a football play, like Ray Lewis coming across the middle or something. It is what it is. Grant knows better than that.”
Williams claimed he wasn’t trying to intentionally foul Tatum.
“I think it was more so he didn’t see me more than anything else,” the Hornets forward told NBC Sports Boston’s Kayla Burton. “Like, I’m reaching, and I definitely made contact with the body before I reached. Probably a hard foul; definitely not intentional. I’m not trying to hurt him by any means. We all know that’s one of my closest friends in the league.”
In an unfortunate twist, Williams had made plans to host some of his former Celtics teammates for dinner after the game. His body check on Tatum spoiled those.
“I assume most of those guys will not be coming over for dinner tonight,” Williams told Burton. “… I had wings and stuff prepared, so it’s kind of funny that it’s like, ‘Well, the game ended that way.'”
The Hornets were called for two flagrant fouls and one technical foul in the closing minutes of Friday’s game, with Miles Bridges also ejected for punching the ball after the whistle. Head coaches Joe Mazzulla and Charles Lee both were T’d up during the fourth quarter, as well, as Boston turned a one-point lead into a 15-point victory.
The Celtics and Hornets will face off again Saturday night in the second half of a back-to-back.
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