C's Brown fined $50,000 for criticizing officials

The NBA fined Celtics forward Jaylen Brown $50,000 on Tuesday after he accused officials of having “an agenda” against him in Boston’s seven-game first-round loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

The league announced it had fined him for public criticism of the officiating two days after Brown, in an appearance on his Twitch stream, took issue with the officials.

Brown was previously fined $35,000 in January after a two-minute postgame rant about the officiating following Boston’s loss to San Antonio.

During Sunday’s stream, Brown showed a play in which Sixers forward Paul George appeared to push off slightly before making an offensive move.

“If you’re going to call push-offs, call that,” Brown said. “Same move. Same refs. Oh, it’s nothing? It’s play on, right?

“But you gonna call me? Everybody does it … but if it would have been me, it’d have been an offensive foul.”

Brown was called for 10 offensive fouls in the first round, twice as many as the next-highest player (Jalen Duren, Karl-Anthony Towns, Neemias Queta and Stephon Castle each had five).

“Every good basketball player does this. What are y’all talking about? They clearly had an agenda,” Brown said. “If Jaylen does this move, call the offensive foul and follow him every time. I don’t know if it’s because I pissed the refs off. I’ve been critical about them, and I called them out a bunch of times. So, they were like, ‘You know what, I got you in the playoffs. Watch this.’ [Because] that’s exactly what they did.

“It’s clearly an agenda. Look at the same move. Some referees that if I had to choose, if I had to, like, say there’s some referees that need to be investigated. We had three of them in the last three games.”

During the regular season, Brown ranked second with 40 offensive fouls called against him. Towns was first with 65.

In the Celtics-76ers series, the foul calls were relatively even between the two teams. The Celtics were called for 136 personal fouls; the Sixers were called for 132.

Brown also took issue during the stream with Sixers big man Joel Embiid, whom he accused of the type of flopping that has “ruined our game.”

“Joel Embiid is a great player. One of the best bigs in basketball history. [But he] flops. He know it,” Brown said. “This ain’t breaking news. It is what it is.”

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.