CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Whatever love exists between the Boston Celtics and Grant Williams disappeared, at least temporarily, late in the fourth quarter Friday night. After Williams drew an ejection for a hard foul on Jayson Tatum with 2:02 left in the Celtics’ 124-109 win against the Hornets, Jaylen Brown approached his former teammate to let him know he took offense to the excessive contact.
Williams would later call the extent of his foul unintentional, but Brown saw the play very differently. He said he told Williams, “That was some bulls–t.”
“It was for sure intentional,” Brown said. “What are we talking about here? Did y’all see the same play that I’m seeing? He hit him like it was a football play, like Ray Lewis coming across the middle or something. It is what it is. Grant know better than that.”
Williams said he was trying to make a play on the ball in transition. He said he believed the foul looked worse because he hit Tatum while he was in the act of passing, and that the foul wouldn’t have been so hard “if (Tatum) had prepared and actually turned his head to the left” while Williams was chasing him.
“It was just a hard foul,” Williams said. “And we play them again tomorrow. It’s nothing crazy or beyond the means. We all know JT’s my guy, so nothing intentional.”
The Celtics players weren’t buying Williams’ claim that the foul wasn’t intentional. How much did his flagrant bother his former team? Tatum, who normally fulfills his media obligations whenever requested to talk, declined to answer questions from the small group of reporters in Charlotte. Brown, who played alongside Williams for four seasons, went so far as to question his former teammate’s friendship with Tatum. Williams called Tatum one of his closest friends in the NBA.
“Actions speak loud,” Brown said. “So it is what it is. We got the win, we’ll move on, but there’s no place in the game for that. I thought JT and him was friends. I guess not.”
Did Brown say that in jest? Maybe. But he was worked up enough after the flagrant-2 foul that assistant coach Tony Dobbins felt the need to walk far out onto the court to stand in front of Brown and make sure he wouldn’t escalate the situation. The Celtics players took the incident seriously. Neemias Queta, near Williams at the time of the play, said the foul was “not cool at all.” Derrick White agreed with his teammates that Williams “obviously wasn’t going for the ball.”
“He’s just too damn big to be doing stuff like that,” White said. “And he know that. But JB’s got our back always. And we always know that. And we’ve got JT’s back always.”
In an interview with NBC Sports Boston’s Kayla Burton, Williams suggested he initially planned to host some of the Celtics players at his place in Charlotte after Friday’s game but assumed they would not take him up on the invitation after tempers flared on the court. With another contest between the two teams in Charlotte on Saturday, the schedule would have presented the rare opportunity for the players to hang out with each other after the game … if they wanted to do so.
The Celtics were plenty friendly with Williams before the game, as they usually are. He was hesitant to fully walk into their shootaround Friday morning, but interrupted White’s newest routine — a game of baseball catch — to share a nice moment with his former teammate near the Spectrum Center court. Williams and Brown hugged each other and played a quick game of Rock, Paper, Scissors when they spotted each other before the game.
Grant Williams greets Jaylen Brown and immediately beats him in a game of rock paper scissors lol pic.twitter.com/m8eRdLg90Z
— Noa Dalzell 🏀 (@NoaDalzell) November 1, 2024
Much of Friday seemed like a reunion, and not just for Williams and his former team. Charles Lee, the Hornets head coach, served as Joe Mazzulla’s assistant last season. Several Celtics players expressed how thrilled they were to see Lee land an opportunity to run his own team. Sam Hauser called Lee “one of the nicest guys in the world, quite honestly.”
During one season with the Celtics, Lee left an imprint on the team. Mazzulla said the coach was instrumental in Jrue Holiday’s adjustment to Boston; having a familiar face around helped Holiday adapt to his new surroundings after a stunning trade from Milwaukee shortly before last season started. Before joining the Celtics staff, Lee worked closely with Holiday as a Bucks assistant.
Holiday said he always advocated for Lee, 39, when other teams inquired about potentially hiring him as a head coach. Interestingly, considering Lee coaches basketball, Holiday’s strongest support for him did not involve the sport itself. Holiday highlighted everything else about the coach.
“Honestly, that he’s a great person,” Holiday said. “He’s a family guy. You’ve seen him in multiple organizations and he’s loved in multiple organizations. He’s loved by players across the league. I feel like he’s a family man, and my family’s really close to his so maybe I’m biased. But I think that environment, bringing that to an organization, means a lot.”
Before tip-off, it was all love between the Celtics and Hornets. Tatum rarely pauses his workout at morning shootaround, but had a good reason for doing so Friday. Kemba Walker, Tatum’s teammate in Boston for two seasons, had popped onto the court to say hello to some old friends. Near the halfcourt logo, Tatum stopped his drills briefly to embrace his buddy.
It’s not normal for an opposing coach to appear at a team’s shootaround, but Walker’s not a normal opposing coach. Plus, the circumstances lined up for him to do so. The Hornets, whose coaching staff he joined in July after announcing his retirement as a player, had just finished their own shootaround at another court inside Spectrum Center. Though his time in Boston didn’t last long, Walker remains beloved in the organization. Celtics players and staffers lit up when they saw him. He hopped from one person to the next, handing out hugs and his trademark smile to anyone he could find around the court. Then, before leaving, he announced his ambitious plans for the night.
“We’re going to bust your ass,” Walker said.
That was just friendly banter. To the Celtics, Williams’ actions crossed the line. From playing with him and against him, they know his physicality can sometimes border on excessive. Before competing against him for the first time in January last season, when Williams still played for the Mavericks, Brown said he loved Williams but expected him to play “an annoying game.” After the Celtics beat Dallas, Brown said he thought Williams was “a little extra” on a couple of plays during the game. Brown said he anticipated some of that from Williams, and that “Grant was going to try to be Grant.”
“But it’s all love,” Brown said at the time. “I know he’s trying to help his team win, so he’s been doing that a lot for them this season. That’s kind of how he made a name for himself. And I wish him the best. As their season continues to go forward, I’m sure they’re going to need a little bit more of that. So I think Grant was just trying to get his team going. That’s all it is.”
The Celtics didn’t have the same tone Friday. They were angry about the way Williams veered directly into Tatum. At least so soon after the play, they weren’t ready to let it go.
They did like how they rallied around each other after the hard contact, though. Mazzulla said what he liked most was that Tatum jumped right up after the foul and walked straight to the free-throw line to handle his business.
“It didn’t really faze him,” Mazzulla said.
The Celtics coach also appreciated the way Brown defended Tatum and the way the team kept its poise after the play.
“As long as we have each other’s back,” Mazzulla said, “that’s all that matters.”
Brown, who agreed with his coach that the Celtics handled the moment well, said such a play “brings a side of our team out that we need.” He said teams need “a little edge,” “a little chippiness” and “a little fight.” He said he welcomes such tests.
“One, it’s us against the world,” Brown said. “So as a leader, as anybody on my side, I ride for all my guys in the locker room. Teams like to send messages. They try to set the tone and do all different type of stuff to either get us out of character or mess with our mind or make us feel like we soft or whatever the case is. We not going for none of that. That’s it: We just not going for it. So that’s all I would say.”
Even if the hard foul comes from an old friend.
(Top photo of Grant Williams fouling Jayson Tatum late in the fourth quarter: Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images)
