Jaylen Brown praises Grant Williams for the “Ray Lewis” hit on Jayson Tatum

Jaylen Brown didn't want to allow Grant Williams to beat Jayson Tatum.

Williams, who played four seasons for Brown and Tatum in Boston, was ejected from Friday night's game between the Celtics and Hornets after knocking Tatum to the ground with a hard shoulder check.

Tatum avoided injury and the Celtics won 124-109, but Brown took his former teammate to task in his postgame press conference.

“I don’t know what it 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 it was, but that just wasn't a basketball game. Grant knows better.”

He added: “Actions speak loudly. It is what it is, we got the win, but there is no place for it in the game. I thought JT and Grant were friends. I do not think so.”

Brown called Williams' hard foul “a bit (BS).” He believed it was “certainly intentional.”

“What are we talking about? “Are you all seeing the same play I saw?” Brown told reporters. “He hit him like it was a football game, like Ray Lewis was coming in the middle or something. It is what it is. Grant knows better.”

Williams claimed he I didn't try to intentionally foul Tatum.

“I think it was mostly because he didn't see me more,” the Hornets forward told NBC Sports Boston's Kayla Burton. “I reach forward and I definitely made contact with the body before I reached it. Probably a hard foul; definitely not intentional. I'm definitely not trying to hurt him. We all know this is one of my closest friends in the league.”

In an unfortunate twist, Williams had planned to invite some of his former Celtics teammates to dinner after the game. His body check on Tatum spoiled it.

“I'm guessing most of these guys won't be coming over for dinner tonight,” Williams told Burton. “…I had wings prepared and stuff like that, so it's kind of funny that they say, 'Well, the game ended like that.'”

Referee James Williams noted that Grant Williams “increased his speed prior to contact” and made “significant contact with the dribbler.”

“The acceleration is considered abrupt, the impact was significant and potentially causing injury, therefore this was determined to be unnecessary and excessive, resulting in a flagrant foul 2 penalty,” the official said in a pool report. “Here, too, the rule applies as an automatic exclusion from the game.”

The Hornets were assessed two flagrant fouls and an unsportsmanlike technical foul in the final minutes of Friday's game, and Miles Bridges was also sent off for hitting the ball after the final whistle. Head coaches Joe Mazzulla and Charles Lee were also highly motivated in the fourth quarter as Boston turned a one-point lead into a 15-point win with eight minutes left.

“I drive for all my guys in the locker room, and teams like to send messages and try to set the tone and do all sorts of things to either throw us out of character, mess with our minds or make us feel like that we are soft,” Brown told reporters. “We don’t want that. That's it. We just don’t do that.”

The Celtics and Hornets will face off again on Saturday night in the second half of a back-to-back game.

Originally published: November 1, 2024 at 10:34 pm EDT