Shams: Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown needed to be separated during locker room confrontation
Sources: Boston’s Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown had heated confrontation after Game 2 loss, needed to be separated.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 18, 2020
Details on @TheAthleticNBA: https://t.co/7NZr4V2pD7
Sources told The Athletic that Smart stormed into the Celtics postgame locker room saying that other players needed to be held accountable and not simply point the finger toward him when things are going wrong. As Smart continued and his voice grew louder, sources said Brown snapped back and shouted that Celtics players must stay together and that their actions must come as a team, not individually, and that Smart needed to cool off. Those sources added Smart had verbal exchanges with a couple of the assistant coaches during the game. Smart and Brown had a tense interaction inside the locker room, with objects thrown around. Teammates diffused the situation before any physical altercation could take place, sources told The Athletic.So this likley sounds worse than it really is. Thius stuff happens all the time. Case in point:
All the Celtics were united in the post game pressers in saying it was no big deal and that Marcus Smart is their brother. I honestly don't think Celtics fans really care about emotions running high in the locker room. They should be. If anything, the reactions I saw were that fans were happy the Celtics were pissed. Of course you'll find the fans that already didn't like Marcus Smart that were less forgiving.KG and Posey had to be separated after a game in Atlanta in '08. This stuff happens. Sometimes it even helps.
— Rich Levine (@rich_levine) September 18, 2020
Too many Bullsh.t rumors out there, this group of guys is one of the best I’ve been around.
— Enes Kanter (@EnesKanter) September 18, 2020
No one can split our family up.
Keep fighting & grinding.
Real or imagined, often athletes like to use the "everyone is against us, we need to band together to show the haters" motivation, so if that's what the Celtics want to do, I'm fine with that. But again most fans had zero problem with the postgame confrontation. As mentioned above Posey and KG got into it in 2008 and Larry Bird famously called out his teammates as "sissies" during a Finals in the 80's.“Smart and Brown have smoothed tensions over since the verbal spat, and one source said the Celtics would learn from it and move on from the episode Friday ahead of a pivotal Game 3 on Saturday.” https://t.co/tAOOFHYmCD
— Chris Grenham (@chrisgrenham) September 18, 2020
Update:12:40pm
ESPN Sources: Brad Stevens had a late night Thursday meeting with Celtics leaders – Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart – to work through emotions of post-Game 2 locker room. A lot of yelling in locker room, but nothing escalated to a physical confrontation.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 18, 2020