A minor scuffle between Boston Celtics teammates appears to have been nothing more than a heat of the moment reaction.
In an ugly 115-99 loss to the Miami Heat on Thursday, a fan’s cell phone video caught Marcus Morris shoving Jaylen Brown during a timeout in the second quarter, causing the two players to be separated.
President of basketball operations Danny Ainge downplayed the situation, while head coach Brad Stevens cracked a slight joke about it. And now, we know what the players had to say about it.
Prior to Saturday’s game against the Orlando Magic, both Brown and Morris reacted to the situation.
“Nothing major,” Brown said, via The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach. “Let it go. Move on.”
Morris went into far more detail.
“We moved past it after the timeout,” Morris said, via Himmelsbach. “I know everybody wants to catch everything on camera, but catch the stuff that happens afterward, when we sat right beside each other and it was over. I know social media is going to make a big deal about something like that, but I feel as though I’m one of the leaders on this team, so if I have an engagement with any of my teammates, we all know that it’s basketball-related and it goes nothing past the court. It’s just two guys that both care about the game, and that’s all it was.”
Morris also added that teammates have to be open with each other, and that if it leads to a little physicality it’s not a huge deal.
“When you’re as competitive as we both are, tempers can get hot,” Morris said, via Boston.com. “That’s all it was.
“… To be the team we want to be, we have to be able to be open with each other,” Morris added. “If it leads to a little bumping and pushing and shoving, I mean, what is it? It’s nothing. You move past that type of stuff. Keep going.”
The Celtics already have needed players-only meetings to hash things out this season, so it’s understandable the optics of players shoving each other aren’t great. For now, publicly at least, it doesn’t sound like Morris and Brown are harboring resentment.
