Stephen A. Smith Blasts Celtics After Jaylen Brown Comments: 'They Play Dumb Basketball'

Well, Brown's comments and antics have made headlines. He is the talk of most Monday sports talk shows and has the attention of Stephen A. Smith. Smith was critical of both Brown and the Celtics after hearing Brown's comments about Embiid. However, Smith did agree with Brown's point about Embiid flopping.

"There is no issue because he lied," Smith said on "First Take" on Monday. "Joel Embiid flops sometimes, but considering his considerable injury history, it's not hard to imagine Joel Embiid falling to the floor, even though he's 7' 1", 270 pounds."

"I understand where Jaylen Brown is coming from, but here's why it's just an awful, awful, awful look for him," Smith explained. "You're getting paid over $300 million. You were an MVP candidate. You were up 3-1 in this series. Did you say anything when you were up 3-1? No, you didn’t…. All of a sudden, here you are after blowing a 3-1 lead for the first time in Celtics history, and you're going to sit up there complaining about him flopping? How about all those missed jump shots from your teammates? Wide open, okay. I don't even want to count the number of times these cats missed three pointers... The point is, when something like that happens, you can not have the residue of that experience you're griping about, Joel Embiid flopping. That is not why the Celtics lost. They lost because they live and die by the 3 and they play dumb basketball down the stretch.”

Smith went into more detail about mistakes the Celtics made down the stretch, calling out Payton Pritchard for missing a three as well. Ultimately, Smith thinks the Celtics need to be more critical of their own mistakes than of Joel Embiid's flopping. The Celtics knew going into the game that Embiid getting to the free-throw line was going to be something they had to deal with and overcome.

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