Jaylen Brown is getting an early start on Festivus 2022 by airing out his grievances against NBA officials.
The Boston Celtics star Brown vented to reporters on Sunday after a loss to the Orlando Magic, Boston’s fourth in their last five games after beginning the year 21-5. Specifically, Brown was upset with the number of traveling violations that he has been whistled for lately.
“That’s something I’ve gotta work on I guess,” Brown said of his traveling turnovers, per Brian Robb of MassLive. “They pick and chose when they emphasize the traveling call. It seems like every f–king game that’s the person, I’m targeted. But if you look around the league, you can pinpoint a lot of players doing the same thing. So you can’t pick and choose when you want to call stuff.”
Brown, who is averaging a career-high 3.2 turnovers per night this season, was whistled for two traveling violations during Sunday’s game. He was one of only two players (along with Orlando’s Paolo Banchero, who received a violation in the third quarter) to be called for traveling on either team.
If you have noticed that traveling is being called with greater frequency leaguewide lately, you are not alone. Robb notes that the number of total traveling calls in the NBA doubled from 1.7 per game in October to 3.4 per game in November. The NBA’s senior vice president of referee development, Monty McCutchen, also declared the call to be a point of emphasis during the preseason, Robb adds.
But Brown clearly believes certain players (namely, him) are being targeted for traveling calls instead of the rules being applied evenly throughout the league. This is not quite the first time either that the All-Star wing Brown has complained about the way that he is officiated.
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