Draymond Green, Eddie House call out Grant Williams for flagrant foul on Jayson Tatum
"JT got a ring and dude let his frustrations out about it."
Celtics players weren’t the only ones unhappy with Grant Williams after he committed a Flagrant 2 on Jayson Tatum in their win over the Hornets on Friday.
Warriors star Draymond Green took to social media late Friday night to rip Williams in a series of posts on X, questioning what the Hornets forward said about the play.
“Grant Williams saying it’s not intentional fouling JT like that is mad wild. And he smiling about it,” Green began.
“Thinking a blindside hit ‘on ya mans’ is a smile worthy offense means 1 of 2 things… you have zero awareness or you a goofy…. And both make you a goofy… goofy
“He mad at JT about something lol… 💍😲 he was suppose to keep him in Boston lol. JT got a ring and dude let his frustrations out about it.”
Williams, who was ejected after he ran into Tatum at full speed and knocked him down as the Celtics star was dribbling in transition in the fourth quarter, explained that he was “trying to make a play on the ball” and had no ill intention.
“JT is one of my closest friends in the league, there was no intentional trying to harm him in any way,” Williams told reporters. “It was just one of those plays where fast, full speed, he passes the ball which probably makes it worse. When I reached for the ball after the fact the ball is already out of his hand. I don’t think it leads to anything if it’s not escalated after the fact. You see me raise my hand, say I fouled him trying to take the foul in transition, got held up by teammates and walked away.”
Green and Williams seemed to have a mutual respect for each other after the Warriors took down the Celtics in the 2022 NBA Finals. But Green called out Williams for his role in a scuffle in a game between the Hornets and Warriors last season, telling him to “stop all the tough guy stuff.”
Former Celtics player and current NBC Sports Boston analyst Eddie House had a similar take to Green on Williams’s foul on Tatum.
“Just because we might be cool, there is something right there,” House said on NBC Sports Boston’s postgame show. “That’s not even a play on the ball. That’s something that’s built up in him. That play right there was not a basketball play and that could have done something crazy to Jayson Tatum. Thank God that it wasn’t.”
Celtics star Jaylen Brown confronted Williams on the play moments after he committed the foul, saying after the game “it wasn’t a basketball play” and “Grant knows better than that.”
House, who jokingly implied that Williams was acting like an informant, wasn’t sure what was behind the former Celtics standout’s action on the play.
“He’ll come over and say ‘I was just trying to make a foul.’ We don’t want to hear that, we know that was not a basketball play,” House said. “Just like Jaylen said, he knows better than that. Or maybe he don’t. Maybe he’s just like, this is what I’m going to do and it don’t matter.
“There are certain ways to set tones in the game to be physical and there are certain ways to be borderline dirty or dirty. Right there, that was muddling on the line of being dirty.”
Tatum had a strong performance in the Celtics’ 124-109 win, with the five free throws he got from Williams’s foul and LaMelo Ball’s Flagrant 1 foul in the final minutes helping his point total. The Celtics star finished with 32 points to go with 11 rebounds, three assists, three steals, and a block.
However, Tatum opted not to speak with the media following the win. So, whether Tatum holds any animosity toward his former teammate for the play is still unclear. But it should make for a more compelling matchup than a usual Celtics-Hornets game in November when the two teams meet again on Saturday.
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