The Boston Celtics blew a 3-1 series lead and were eliminated by the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the NBA playoffs on May 2.
Less than 24 hours later, Celtics All-Star Jaylen Brown livestreamed a post-mortem on Twitch, including a revelation that this was his “favorite year” of his basketball career and a ton of criticism of the referees. The NBA fined Brown $50,000, and what should have been the end was only the beginning.
We are still caught in the crosshairs of a feud between Brown and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, a timeline so convoluted that Bryan Kalbrosky did the lord’s work by condensing it here.
In short, Smith blasted Brown for his original Twitch stream, prompting Brown to tell Smith to retire. They’ve been going back and forth since then, with Smith using “First Take” as his perch to take shots at Brown, eventually threatening to do real reporting on how the Celtics feel about Brown.
FS1’s “First Things First” host Nick Wright went on a 15-minute monologue on the May 19 episode of his “What’s Wright?” podcast about how ridiculously Smith has behaved. In part, Wright said Smith should report what he knows, if anything, rather than just threaten to use the information he claims to have.
If you’ve read this far, you know what happened next.
Stephen A. Smith responded to Wright by saying “he knows better” than to come at him and insinuating that Wright came after Smith on behalf of LeBron James. “He should be ashamed of himself, but I’ll leave it alone,” Smith said.
“I’ve never seen someone’s defense be simply repeating the exact behavior they’re being criticized for,” Wright posted on X in response to Smith’s clip. “‘I KNOW (waves hands) THINGS ABOUT YOU, TOO! I won’t say them, and they’re total figments of my imagination… but I KNOW THINGS! I’ll leave it at that!’ 10 out of 10. No notes.”
It’s the safest bet in the world that this won’t be the end of the saga no one asked for.
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