Celtics star accuses referees of having an ‘agenda’ against him after playoff exit

Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown accused NBA officials of having an “agenda” against him in the team’s playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers, which ended in a Game 7 defeat.

Brown touched on 76ers center Joel Embiid getting calls after Boston lost to Philadelphia on Saturday night. He further went after referees in a livestream.

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“They keep saying there are push-offs and stuff like that,” he said, via Mass Live. “Do you know how many players do that? That’s the common play, a basketball play. Every player does it. So why are you targeting me? They clearly had an agenda. Maybe because I had spoken and was critical of the refs in the regular season. So you know how they responded? You’re going to lead the playoffs in offensive fouls. That was the response from the officiating crew.

“I actually spoke to some refs and there was an agenda going into each game. Anytime Jaylen brings his arm up, just from reputation, just call it. Paul George does the same thing. Jalen Brunson does the same thing. I can go down the list. It’s a basketball play, whether y’all believe it or not. Everybody does that when you drive, especially when you got bodies on you. Philly took advantage of it and they took advantage of the officiating and it cost us to some degree.”

Philadelphia won the final game of the series, 109-100. Embiid had 34 points, 12 rebounds and six assists. Embiid made nine of his 11 free-throw attempts.

Brown made critical comments toward Embiid.

“Embiid put a lot of pressure on us, like on all our bigs and our guards,” he said. “We didn’t really have an answer for him. We tried a bunch of different things and he just, he’s a big body, and also he was flopping around, he got some extra calls and stuff like that, and they rewarded him for that. That’s the league that we’re in. So, that’s all I got to say.”

Brown averaged 25.7 points per game and shot 45.5% from the floor.

He was the best Celtics player all season as the team was without Jayson Tatum for most of the season. He played in 71 games and averaged 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game.

Boston was 56-26 and finished second in the Eastern Conference.