MIAMI — Jaylen Brown did not seem surprised about the fine he received from the NBA earlier this week. After all, he did tell the league to fine him during a rant about the officiating.

“Ask, and you shall receive,” Brown quipped Wednesday afternoon after the Boston Celtics wrapped up practice at the University of Miami.

Despite that moment of humor, Brown quickly turned serious again while continuing to fight for more love from NBA referees. He explained more about why he spoke up again after Saturday’s loss to the San Antonio Spurs and why he has grown frustrated with the officiating this season.

“I think something had to be said,” Brown said. “As a team, we get to the free-throw line the least in the league. So just protecting our guys and myself. I think that we deserve a little bit of more respect.”

Brown was fined $35,000 for publicly criticizing the officiating in the Celtics’ game against San Antonio. Though it was his first fine of the season, he had previously complained about the referees after several other games. He said he hopes his latest comments will convince the NBA to look at the way the Celtics have been officiated this season.

“I think the analytics show that our team is dead last (in free-throw attempts),” Brown said. “And it feels like inconsistencies as well. So I want them to — hopefully they put some time in and review it. But I feel like defenders and stuff are getting away with a lot, and it makes my job a lot harder.”

As Brown said, the Celtics rank last in free-throw attempts with 18.7 per game. They are the only team to get to the line fewer than 20 times per game. Individually, Brown ranks 15th in free-throw attempts per game at 7.2 despite driving more times than anyone outside of Deni Avdija or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Each of those players ranks among the top four in free-throw attempts per game.

“For us to be last, I just think we need a little bit more respect,” Brown said. “We come out and compete; we’re one of the top teams in the league. It’s not like we’re not coming out and competing on both ends of the ball, on defense and offense. It’s hard to beat good teams if you’re only getting to the free-throw line four times when you play against top-tier teams. Like, no matter what the X’s and O’s are, no matter what, if that part of the game isn’t substantial and it’s constantly that it’s hard to win those games.”

Brown said he has studied officiating, so he knows where refs are supposed to be and who’s supposed to make each call. He said he has also studied all the players who get to the free-throw line the most. It bothers him that he feels like he doesn’t get the same whistle as those guys.

“I do the same things that they do,” Brown said. “They just pick and choose who they like to call it on. That’s the part that pisses me off. It should just be everybody should just get reffed evenly and consistently, but it just seems like there’s an agenda where some guys they choose to call certain fouls for, some guys they don’t. So I don’t know what goes into that decision-making, but it’s kind of clear that certain guys on certain teams, certain markets or certain profiles get preferential treatment versus others when it should just be basketball.”

On the Celtics, Brown wasn’t alone in speaking out about the officials recently. In an unusual news conference after the team’s 98-96 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Monday night, coach Joe Mazzulla said nothing but “illegal screen” while responding to questions. He repeated the phrase six times, making it clear he believed Pascal Siakam should have been called for an offensive foul before his game-winning floater with 6.1 seconds left.

Though the NBA acknowledged in its last two-minute report that Mazzulla was right and an illegal screen should have been called, he said he didn’t focus on the no-call with the Celtics players. Instead, he harped on the third-quarter run that allowed Indiana to build a lead earlier in the game.

“It’s a balance, because at the end of the day, it’s out of your control and there’s really nothing you can do about it, but from time to time, there’s always moments where — I thought that was an obvious one,” Mazzulla said. “So it’s just a balance there. At the end of the day, that’s not the message to our team. The message to the team was that run they went on.”

Added Mazzulla, “We can’t put ourselves in a situation where other people are allowed to control the outcome of the game. So we have to get better.”

Brown wants the officials to do better, too. After missing Monday’s loss to Indiana with low back spasms, he was on the practice court Wednesday and said he felt good.

“Even without (more free-throw attempts), we’re a good team, so we beat a lot of teams,” Brown said. “It’s just harder to beat the better teams when you’re not getting that. But we’re a good enough team that if we just play through it, we’ll beat 50 percent of the teams that are out there just because we play better basketball, we’re in the right place, we’re smarter. But when you play really good teams, that makes it tough.

“So as a leader, it’s my job to kind of not let it affect us so we’re not complaining too much and stuff like that. But when you make physical drives, and you get to the basket, and they don’t call it, it makes it look like a bad possession, and then it leads to our defense, it just points over. So then it makes me think. Should I be aggressive here? Should I pass it here? You start getting indecisive, and it just snowballs. But I’m going to keep being aggressive, but I also have to monitor if I don’t get it, just have a stoic mentality, and on to the next play.”