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Tim MacMahonMar 13, 2026, 05:13 PM<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Joined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears regularly on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM<\/p>\n Multiple Authors<\/p>\n OKLAHOMA CITY — A couple of nights after getting ejected for vehemently arguing a no-call, Boston Celtics<\/a> star Jaylen Brown<\/a> bemoaned what he perceived as an NBA trend of players being rewarded for “foul baiting.”<\/p>\n Brown brought up the issue after Thursday’s104-102 road loss to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> and the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>, when Brown scored 34 points and attempted 14 free throws, tied for his third-highest total of the season.<\/p>\n It was the first time that Brown spoke to the media since he was ejected in the second quarter of the Celtics’ road loss to the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> on Tuesday. He received two technical fouls after arguing that a foul should have been called when Stephon Castle<\/a> bumped him out of bounds while Brown was dribbling.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n “I don’t know, maybe it all works in the end, but I just don’t foul bait,” Brown said. “I’m not looking to flop or anything like that, but it’s almost like you got to. It’s almost like, because there’s a couple of plays in the fourth quarter where I felt like I drove strong, went up strong, and I didn’t get the benefit of the doubt. But maybe if I would have flopped, maybe I would have been able to sell that call. And those decide games.<\/p>\n “So it’s like, we commend players for playing the game the right way, but we give the benefit to those who necessarily are trying to manipulate the game into their advantage. I just don’t think it’s basketball. Let’s just play basketball. All the foul baiting, I think it’s whatever for me.”<\/p>\n Brown did not mention Gilgeous-Alexander while discussing foul baiting, but it’s a frequent topic of discussion about the reigning MVP’s game. Opposing crowds have chanted “free throw merchant” during Gilgeous-Alexander’s trips to the line on multiple occasions over the past few years.<\/p>\n Gilgeous-Alexander ranks third in the league in free throw attempts with 9.2 per game, trailing only Luka Doncic<\/a> and Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>. Brown ranks 15th with 7.1 free throw attempts per game.<\/p>\n However, Brown attempted six more free throws in Thursday’s game than Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored 35 points while extending his 20-point streak to 127 games, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s record. Gilgeous-Alexander scored 14 points without attempting a free throw in the fourth quarter, when Brown had half of his 14 free throw attempts.<\/p>\n Asked for his definition of foul baiting, Brown said: “Just accentuating contact. It’s one thing to get fouled, but it’s like when you’re not even trying to score when you’re driving and flailing your body into [a defender] just to make it look like you’re getting fouled. I think that’s the part where it’s like, all right, come on. But I mean, that’s where our league is at. That’s where the NBA is at. So it’s like, get down or lay down. So maybe I need to flop a little bit more.”<\/p>\n Brown said that he was “pissed” that he didn’t get to play the entire game against the Spurs, saying it was a game he had circled on his calendar due to the caliber of opponent.<\/p>\n “I felt like I was ready to have a big-time performance, and my night got cut short,” Brown said. “In certain spots, maybe I could have been a little bit better, but you’re passionate. It’s a big game. You want to see emotion. You want to see your star players showing that emotion. I don’t think I deserve to get tossed. And I think the NBA agreed, because I didn’t get fined or anything like that. So it is what it is. It happens. People make mistakes, but I’m just looking forward now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim MacMahonMar 13, 2026, 05:13 PM CloseJoined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears regularly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-537201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}