Brown rips Celtics after 'embarrassing' finish vs. Jazz originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Jaylen Brown has had enough.
The Boston Celtics lost 122-108 to the Utah Jazz on Tuesday night, ending their West Coast road trip at 2-3 and dropping to 4-8 over their last 12 games.
The Celtics crumbled late in Utah, allowing 74 points in the second half and getting outscored 17-7 over the final five minutes. That last stretch apparently didn't sit well with Brown, who sounded off about Boston's late-game struggles following the loss.
"We f---ing should take it personally," Brown said in his postgame video conference, as seen in the video player above. "The fourth quarter was embarrassing. That's the time when we're supposed to be our grittiest and it seems like we just fell apart."
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Brown scored a team-high 33 points on 12-of-20 shooting, but Boston couldn't get stops when it needed to, as Jazz star Donovan Mitchell hit three clutch 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to seal the victory.
Brown shouldered some of the blame for the Celtics' crunch-time failures.
"In a sense, that's a lack of toughness and that's a lack of leadership," Brown said. "A lot of that is on me. As a leader of this team, I take responsibility for how we respond and how we come out in that fourth quarter. It just wasn't there for us."
The Celtics indeed have been one of the NBA's worst teams at closing games of late. After winning five of its first seven "clutch" games -- a five-point game or less with five minutes or fewer to play -- Boston has lost seven of its last nine such games.
Brown isn't shy about calling out the Celtics' shortcomings, and perhaps his comments will light a spark under the C's as they return home Thursday night to face the Toronto Raptors.
