Saturday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs was the final straw for Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown. After a night filled with frustration from officiating concerns, the forward blew up at the referees in an expletive-filled postgame rant, and now, the league has delivered its verdict on the situation.

James Jones, the league’s executive vice president and head of basketball operations, announced a $35,000 fine for Brown’s public criticism of the officiating. And after hearing his comments, you’ll clearly understand why the fine was issued.

“I’ll accept the fine at this point,” Brown told reporters after the Spurs game. “I thought it was some b——- tonight. I think they’re a good defensive team, but they ain’t that damn good… And I hope somebody can just pull up the clips, because it’s the same s— every time we play a good team.”

The numbers clearly illustrate his point.

The Celtics shot just four free throws all night, converting three of them. Brown, despite playing 43 minutes and logging 23 drives, didn’t draw any shooting fouls. He called it a familiar pattern that has repeated across various points this season: physical defense allowed against the Celtics while touch fouls went the other way.

Brown even called out official Curtis Blair by name and challenged people to publicly pull up clips from the game. After his postgame conference, Brown took to X, where he posted a simple message:

“Fine me I’m sick of this s—.”

To Brown’s credit, he didn’t entirely blame the loss on officiating. He acknowledged the Celtics’ late-game execution deficiency and that he himself had areas to clean up, but the numbers were hard to ignore.

Why the NBA drew the line with Jaylen Brown’s referee criticism

Jaylen Brown’s comments crossed a line that the league has been very particular about. Criticism of officiating isn’t anything new, but doing so publicly while firing off as many profanities as he did raises credibility issues for the NBA, especially when one of the officials is named.

This wasn’t an isolated moment for Brown, who said very similar things after the Celtics’ loss to the Denver Nuggets earlier this season. In that game, he logged 31 drives, but drew only one foul, falling extremely short of his season average of 9.2% foul percentage on 17.7 drives per game.

“They were physical, and they got away with a lot,” the Celtics forward said back then. “I kind of let the officiating get to my head a little bit. I think their defense was good, but it wasn’t great.”

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The Spurs, for comparison, shot 20 free throws, converting 14 of them. Only Neemias Queta and Payton Pritchard attempted foul shots for Boston.

For Brown, the message is clear, and he said what many on his team thought, but wouldn’t say aloud. While the league fined him for his words, the emotion still lingers. If the Celtics keep finding themselves in tightly officiated, high-stakes games, this won’t be the last time tension surfaces.