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The Boston Celtics<\/a> collapsed in their first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers,<\/a> squandering a 3-1 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n Celtics guard Jaylen Brown<\/a> pins some of the blame on the officiating. Following a 109-100 loss in Game 7<\/a> at TD Garden in Boston on Saturday night, he called out the referees for giving 76ers center Joel Embiid<\/a> favorable calls.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We didn’t really have an answer for [Embiid],” Brown said postgame. “We tried a bunch of different things. He’s a big body. He also was flopping around, he got some extra calls, and they rewarded him for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n “But that’s the league we’re in. That’s all I gotta say.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Embiid, who scored 34 points on Saturday, went to the line more in Game 7 than he did during the regular season. The 7-foot, 280-pound center attempted 11 free throws against Boston, converting nine. During the regular season, he averaged 8.8 free-throw attempts per game. He shot slightly more from the foul line in the series against Boston, recording 9.3 attempts per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, this is the\u00a0<\/span>NBA<\/a>, a league in which many star players flop to get to the charity stripe more often.<\/span> More importantly, Boston has itself to blame<\/a> for its postseason crumble, not the referees.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Celtics’ lead slipped away due in part to abysmal three-point shooting. Per ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt, Boston went 49-of-179 (27.4 percent) from three-point range in its four losses. In Game 7, the team shot 13-of-49 (27 percent) from three.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Star forward Jayson Tatum \u2014 who averaged 23.3 points per game in the series \u2014 missing Game 7 because of left knee tightness only worsened the Celtics’ problems. Brown, being a defensive liability, also didn’t help. The guard scored 33 points on Saturday but posted a plus\/minus of -16. (Plus\/minus is calculated by taking the difference between total team points scored and total team points allowed while a player is on the court.)<\/p>\n “Obviously, we would have liked to close it out … but Philadelphia is a good basketball team, and they’ve gotten better since the regular season,” Brown said\u00a0<\/a>(h\/t ESPN’s Tim Bontemps). “It’s the playoffs we knew it was going to be a fight, and we didn’t expect nothing less. Nothing to hang our head over. Got no regrets.”\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But Boston certainly wishes it had found a way to stop Embiid \u2014 who averaged 28 PPG in the series \u2014 even if it felt he received too many whistles.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Jaylen Brown calls out Joel Embiid<\/a> for “flopping around”\u00a0 <\/h2>\n
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