The Celtics were not happy in the aftermath of Grant Williams flagrant-2 foul that led to his ejection in the fourth quarter on Jayson Tatum Friday night and NBC Sports Boston analyst Eddie House did not hold back in his assessment of the Hornets forward after the controversial sequence.
House, who won a championship with the Celtics in 2008, took Williams to task for barreling over Tatum in the open floor with 2:02 remaining in the Celtics’ victory. Williams and Tatum have a long lasting friendship from their days together in Boston but that could be put to the test after Friday’s actions.
“Just because we might be cool, there is something right there,” House said postgame. “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.”
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Williams has a history of hard fouls in his career, including one against Jaylen Brown last season in a regular season matchup between Boston and Dallas. Those incidents have started to give Williams a bit of a reputation around the league and House sounds tired of Williams’ excuses for those type of plays.
“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 declined to speak with the media in Charlotte after the win, setting the stage for a very interesting rematch for Boston against Williams and the Hornets on Saturday night.
