Whatever happened in the locker room after the Boston Celtics’ loss to the Miami Heat, it didn’t seem to ruffle forward Jaylen Brown’s feathers — nor did he seem especially upset with the teammate who was reportedly doing much of the shouting after the loss, Marcus Smart.
If anything, he seemed closer to him than ever.
“He plays with passion, he’s full of fire — and that’s what I love about him most, to be honest,” explained Brown once the postgame brouhaha had calmed.
“He has that desire and that will. We need him to continue to have that. It’s ups and downs with families, all the time but we embrace each other for who we are, who Marcus is. I love him for it. So, we’ve got to get ready to come back taking the same fire and add it to Game 3.”
Perhaps the fight ought to be seen as a positive.
Woj: Brad Stevens held late-night meeting to smooth post-loss tension https://t.co/nkj6uGRVmn
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) September 18, 2020
What might sound absurd was born out the reaction of the rest of the team, with Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum and coach Brad Stevens all downplaying the exchange in the presser, and teammates like Enes Kanter doing the same on social media.
Another defensive night mare with a history of clashing with his team in high-passion moments weighed in on the spat, the Golden State Warrior’s Draymond Green.
Speaking on TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” Green offered his take on the varieties of infighting in the NBA.
“The reality is, I think, winning teams argue way more than losing teams,” he observed, “because losing teams, they bicker.”
“So, if I’m on a losing team, I’m going to come to you and say, ‘hey, man — [he] isn’t passing me the ball; he’s freezing me out’. And then you partner up with me, and now you and me are looking at [him] like he’s crazy. A winning team is going to say, ‘your body language was terrible in the first quarter,’ because that’s what I saw when I was watching the game.”
“Winning teams will always argue more than losing teams, and in fact, the media can love losing teams if they want, if they don’t want any arguing, and those teams will just lose and that’s that,” added Green.
Shams: Smart, Brown got into it postgame vs Heat; have since reconciled https://t.co/C3JlAzEAvF
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) September 18, 2020
There’s no doubt in any basketball mind worthy of consideration that the Celtics are a winning team after muscling their way through the first two rounds of the East Playoffs past some of the NBA’s top talent.
And there shouldn’t be much doubt that this team has the talent to get past Miami.
But Boston will need to put these feelings to bed to play with the unity needed to get the job done, and it sounds like that may have happened before the sun even rose on the argument.
