Grant Williams swears he wasn’t trying to be dirty when he ran full speed into Jayson Tatum with about two minutes left in Boston's win in Charlotte.
“JT is one of my closest friends in the league,” Williams said of the play. “It’s no intentional kind of harm in any way.”
That's a tough sell in Boston. Even if Williams is telling the truth, it’s hard to square that with how the play looked.
“Actions speak loud,” Jaylen Brown said. “There’s no place in the game for that. I thought JT and Grant were friends. I guess not.”
They were friends enough for Williams to prepare a postgame feast of chicken wings for him and his former teammates. But Williams admitted to NBC Sports Boston, "I assume most of those guys will not be coming over for dinner tonight,” which is a shame. I bet Williams, with all his millions and living in his childhood hometown, knows where to find the best wings around.
Who knows how this will affect his friendships with the Celtics? Chances are history will win out and men will do the thing men do in this situation: They’ll rag on him for a bit, he’ll have to take it, and everyone will move on. We’re simple animals like that. We show affection through insults, and I’m sure some of the postgame comments from the Celtics were dripping with some added sarcasm.
“He’s just too damn big to be doing stuff like that,” Derrick White said of the play. White and Williams shot at the same hoop together when they were both here, so I’m sure it’s not the first time White has made Grant’s girth the subject of a barb or two.
I don’t think Williams saw Tatum and found it to be the right time and place to deliver some sort of message. I don’t think there's any jealousy involved or underlying animosity.
I think Williams saw the game slipping away and he wanted to foul without it being ruled a take foul. I think he might also have thought he owed Tatum a hard foul after Tatum blocked him a couple of times, once earlier in the game and once in Dallas.
And I also think Williams is, in fact, too damn big to do something like he did, because I think he misjudged just how fast they were going and how violent the contact was going to be at that speed. That makes the play dangerous and the ejection warranted. That makes it worthy of further review for either a fine or a suspension.
Does it make it malicious? Probably not, but that doesn’t matter. What really matters is what came after the play.
“What I like most was just how he jumped right up, didn't lay around, didn't really phase him, just, he went right up, went to the free throw line, did his business,” Joe Mazzulla said of Tatum. “I thought we handled it well. As long as we got each other’s back and we have a team … that's all that matters.”
Brown very much leaned into that role, chirping at Williams in the immediate aftermath of the play and laying into his former teammate after the game.
“I was just saying how that was some bullshit,” Brown said. “It was, for sure, intentional. What are we talking about? Y'all see the same play that I was seeing? He hit him like it was a football play, like Ray Lewis coming across the middle or something. It is what it is. Grant knows better than that.”
It’s moments like when you can see why Mazzulla would like to see fighting back in the NBA. He might say it’s entertaining (and it totally is for him), but it’s also something that can galvanize a team. The 5-1 Celtics might not seem like they need any of that, but this is a new season full of new challenges. And frankly, one of the biggest challenges is still making sure they're as cohesive and motivated on a night-to-night basis. Brian Scalabrine openly suggested that Boston might not have the same defensive edge they did last season, choosing instead to turn it on selectively.
A little something to raise their hackles might not be such a bad thing.
“I think that that brings a side of our team out that we need,” Brown said. “I think that adds another dimension to our team and that's what we need if we want to continue to win games at a high level. You need a little edge, you need a little chippiness, you need a little little fight in you. So I welcome that as well. I agree with Joe.”
Mazzulla will gladly welcome anything that jostles his team. Tatum bounced back up and wasn’t hurt, so Mazzulla’s attention is now entirely on the team’s response. Part one of that response happened in the game, where teammates backed each other up and the team kept its composure while their opponent disintegrated.
Part two comes Saturday night, where the Celtics immediately get to put some of this bottled angst to good use. Opportunities for a full 48-minute response are rare, but what the Celtics are being served in Charlotte can be tastier than any chicken wing (yes, even those lemon pepper ones).
The Celtics can send a message to the Hornets, and the rest of the league, that there will be no free shots taken at anyone in Green, much less its stars. To Mazzulla's chagrin, there's no Dave Semenko to dole out immediate punishment, and they are about 800 years removed from being allowed to put Williams' head on a pike on the Zakim bridge as a warning. He'll have to settle for some on-court comeuppance.
Saturday night in Charlotte, the Celtics can prove the hockey team isn’t the only bear in Boston. Poke it at your own risk.