The Boston Celtics are back to refuting reports about how much they "like" each other.
Is it that time of year already?
In what has become one of the most annoying traditions in all of Boston sports, the Celtics have routinely been subject to reports about their chemistry off the court. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum routinely star in this show, as it seems to be thought that the two All-NBA stars cannot get along given where they stand in the organization as it relates to their ability on the court.
In the hours leading up to Game 4, three separate reports came out regarding this very topic. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski claimed the Celtics "never got over" the firing of former head coach Ime Udoka, while Kevin O'Connor of The Ringer reported that Boston was tired of "fake liking each other" and team radio broadcast color commentator Cedric Maxwell claimed that upper management had a "run-in" with players following Game 3.
That's left the Celtics with a ton of garbage to sift through as they prepared for their Game 4 win, which Brown believes is indicative of something positive.
"I think that showed our character," Brown said immediately following the Celtics' win in Game 4, per NBA-provided video. "You know, obviously, we underperformed in our last three games, and you start to hear all these stories come out about X, Y and Z. Who knows where it actually comes from, and 99% of them is not true at all. We wanted to stay together. That was the emphasis last night before we played today, just make sure we was on the same page.
"We didn't want to come out and lay an egg. We wanted to come out and play together, wanted to come out and trust each other, come out and play some defense and have some pride about yourself and win the game. We're more than capable of doing that and tonight we got it done."
The Celtics' preparation didn't seem to be hindered by any of those reports, however, as Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston revealed the team had a group outing at Top Golf after their afternoon film session on Monday. Brown wouldn't go as far as to confirm the outing location, but he did reveal the team got together.
"(We were) just all together," Brown said. "I don't gotta share no details. We all at some point during the day yesterday were all together as a team. We wanted to come out and do what we did tonight."
