ORLANDO — Jaylen Brown started his day as a late add to the Celtics injury report, then during the Game 3 loss to the Magic, he picked up another issue. Brown said postgame that he dislocated his left index finger on Cole Anthony’s flagrant foul early in the second quarter.
Initially, Brown was on the ground in a decent amount of pain after the foul. Eventually, during the replay review to check the foul, Brown got up and was fine. Still, that’s another flagrant foul called on the Magic that’s resulted in at least some pain. In Game 1, it was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s flagrant that resulted in Jayson Tatum’s bone bruise in his right wrist. In Game 2, Goga Bitadze’s flagrant foul and elbow to Kristaps Porzingis head resulted in the big man needing to get five stitches.
“We’re supposed to be playing basketball,” Brown said. “That’s what it’s about, playing basketball, getting up and down. The flagrant fouls is piling up, you know what I mean? It is what it is but we just got be ready for Game 4.”
It appeared there was a chance Brown could miss Game 3 due to the bone bruise in his right knee that’s slowed him down over the past month. He was added to the C’s injury report as questionable after shootaround Friday.
But after going through pregame warmups, Brown was good to play in Game 3. On his knee, all Brown said was: “Just taking it one day at a time. That’s it.”
Brown voiced his frustration after the game. He disagreed with the referees on some calls. The Celtics have spoken about how the Magic are often borderline fouling or straight-up fouling on multiple possessions in a consistently physical game. But there have been a few times where the C’s ended up in pain.
“There might be a fight break out or something because it’s starting to feel like it’s not even basketball and the refs are not controlling their environment,” Brown said. “So it is what it is. If you want to fight it out, we can do that. We can fight to see who goes to the second round.”
Regardless, all the Celtics can do is look forward to Game 4, set for 7 p.m. Sunday at the Kia Center. They still have a 2-1 lead in the first-round series after dropping Game 3. The Magic will look to muck it up in a physical battle as they took a game off the defending champs.
“Responding with force, meeting your line, playing our basketball — that’s the key,” Brown said. “We know how good we are and what we can do but we just got to fight. We got to meet the line, meet the level next game and we’ll be more prepared.”
