Jaylen Brown calls out Joel Embiid for flopping, says NBA refs have 'agenda' against him during Twitch stream

Calling out a player is one thing. Calling out officials, and by proxy, the league, is quite another. On the same stream, Brown accused the referees of having an "agenda" against him.

Jaylen Brown says the refs have an agenda against him 👀

(h/t @rileysbetter ) pic.twitter.com/muAoYlxFKu

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) May 4, 2026

"Why are you targeting me? They clearly had an agenda," he said. "Maybe because I spoke, I was critical of the refs in the regular season. So you know how they responded? 'We're gonna call every, you're gonna lead the playoffs in offensive fouls.' That was the response from the officiating crew.

"You could clearly tell. I've actually spoken to some refs and they said it was an agenda going into each game. 'Any time Jaylen brings his arm up, just from reputation, just call it.' Paul George does the same thing. Jalen Brunson does the same thing. I can go down the list. It's a basketball play, whether y'all believe it or not. Everybody does that when you drive, especially if you've got bodies on you. But Philly took advantage of it, and they took advantage of the officiating. It cost us to some degree. I've been doing it all regular season, not a problem. Now, all of a sudden, it's an offensive foul every time. Keep that same energy with everybody else. That's all I've gotta say."

Brown was called for 10 offensive fouls in the series, largely for using his off-arm to create space. That severely limited his effectiveness as a driver. In the regular season, Brown averaged 13.2 points on 19.1 drives per game, but against Philadelphia, he fell down to 8.9 points on 18.1 drives per game. Boston had a 3-1 series lead before losing the final three games, and the Celtics played without Jayson Tatum in Game 7 on Saturday.

In a sense, he does have a point. He is far from the only player who consistently uses his off-arm to clear out defenders as a driver. George, Brunson and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are notorious offenders in that regard. It's a tricky foul to call in the moment, and enforcement in the regular season was certainly sparse. Brown committed the second-most offensive fouls in the NBA during the regular season, but at 40 in 71 appearances, his per-game average more than doubled from 0.56 per game to 1.43 per game. The rest of the playoffs will show us if the league plans to enforce off-arm usage for drivers more on the rest of the league or if Brown simply committed more egregious offensive fouls than others have.

While the comments were not made to reporters or during an official NBA press availability, Brown could certainly be fined by the league for his remarks. A player accusing an official of having an agenda is not the sort of thing the league tends to take lightly. Earlier in the playoffs, Devin Booker was fined $35,000 for criticizing the officials after Game 2 of Phoenix's first-round loss to Oklahoma City.