Celtics' Brown calls out 76ers' Embiid for 'flopping around'

Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown. Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

Celtics' Jaylen Brown calls out 76ers' Joel Embiid for 'flopping around' following stunning first-round playoff collapse

By Clark Dalton | Last updated May 3, 2026 1:03 PM ET

The Boston Celtics collapsed in their first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers, squandering a 3-1 lead.

Celtics guard Jaylen Brown pins some of the blame on the officiating. Following a 109-100 loss in Game 7 at TD Garden in Boston on Saturday night, he called out the referees for giving 76ers center Joel Embiid favorable calls.

Jaylen Brown calls out Joel Embiid for "flopping around"

"We didn't really have an answer for [Embiid]," Brown said postgame. "We tried a bunch of different things. He's a big body. He also was flopping around, he got some extra calls, and they rewarded him for that.

"But that's the league we're in. That's all I gotta say."

"[Joel Embiid] also was flopping around. ... They rewarded him for that, but that's the league that we're in."

—Jaylen Brown after the Game 7 loss pic.twitter.com/FvzlGeKD24
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) May 3, 2026

Embiid, who scored 34 points on Saturday, went to the line more in Game 7 than he did during the regular season. The 7-foot, 280-pound center attempted 11 free throws against Boston, converting nine. During the regular season, he averaged 8.8 free-throw attempts per game. He shot slightly more from the foul line in the series against Boston, recording 9.3 attempts per game.

However, this is the NBA, a league in which many star players flop to get to the charity stripe more often. More importantly, Boston has itself to blame for its postseason crumble, not the referees.

The Celtics' lead slipped away due in part to abysmal three-point shooting. Per ESPN's Scott Van Pelt, Boston went 49-of-179 (27.4 percent) from three-point range in its four losses. In Game 7, the team shot 13-of-49 (27 percent) from three.

Check my math, but in the four losses, I’ve got 49-179 from three in this series for Boston.

That’s insane.
— Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) May 3, 2026

Star forward Jayson Tatum — who averaged 23.3 points per game in the series — missing Game 7 because of left knee tightness only worsened the Celtics' problems. Brown, being a defensive liability, also didn't help. The guard scored 33 points on Saturday but posted a plus/minus of -16. (Plus/minus is calculated by taking the difference between total team points scored and total team points allowed while a player is on the court.)

"Obviously, we would have liked to close it out ... but Philadelphia is a good basketball team, and they've gotten better since the regular season," Brown said (h/t ESPN's Tim Bontemps). "It's the playoffs we knew it was going to be a fight, and we didn't expect nothing less. Nothing to hang our head over. Got no regrets."

But Boston certainly wishes it had found a way to stop Embiid — who averaged 28 PPG in the series — even if it felt he received too many whistles.

Clark Dalton

Clark Dalton is a 2022 journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He gained experience in sports media over the past seven years — from live broadcasting and creating short films to podcasting and producing. In college, he wrote for The Daily Texan. He loves sports and enjoys hiking, kayaking and camping.

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