The game was a blowout and the warmup was still the story. Boston beat Philadelphia 144-106 on Saturday night at TD Garden, and the clip that traveled furthest was shot before tip, when Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown did their pregame work on opposite ends of the floor.
The Celtics on NBC Sports Boston account framed it the way everyone else read it: “The Jays warm up on opposite sides of the court for the first time.” The two were within a few feet of each other at one point. Neither turned, neither acknowledged the other, and both finished their routines and walked off.
Brown Never Checked In
Here is the detail getting lost in the clip. Brown did not play. He was in the arena but was not on the Philadelphia bench, and was reported to be watching from out of view rather than the sideline. His first competitive game against the Celtics is not until November 10 in Philadelphia.
LeBron James also sat the entire night for the Sixers. So the most anticipated visit on Boston’s preseason calendar produced a warmup clip and a 38-point loss. Neither Brown nor Tatum has said anything publicly about the pregame, and no team official has addressed it.
Boston Looked Like the Better Team
Tatum played 27 minutes and scored 23 points with five rebounds and four assists, moving like a player with nothing left to prove about his health. Payton Pritchard led the Celtics with 25. Paul George made his Boston debut with 13 points, five rebounds, four assists and five steals after a slow offensive start.
Philadelphia had no answer for any of it. The Sixers were without both Brown and James, and a 38-point margin in October tells you less about a title favorite than the schedule makers would like, but Boston controlled the game from the opening minutes and never gave it back.
Mitchell Robinson scored Boston’s first points of the night in his own debut. Hugo Gonzalez went 4-for-4 from the field. Baylor Scheierman piled up six assists before he attempted a shot, and Jordan Walsh started. Boston’s bench units spaced the floor and moved the ball better than anything Philadelphia ran.
What It Actually Means
Very little in basketball terms and a fair amount in every other sense. Two players who spent nine seasons and a championship together could not share a half court for twenty minutes of stretching. Whatever friction has been reported over who led that Boston team did not dissolve the moment the trade did.
The honest caveat is that warmup sides get assigned, players keep fixed routines, and silent video proves nothing about what either man feels. Nobody has reported a confrontation or a conversation. What exists is footage of two former teammates behaving like strangers in a building where they won a title.
There is also a competitive reading of all this that has nothing to do with feelings. Boston traded away a Finals MVP and still looked sharper, deeper and better organized than the team that got him. Philadelphia has two weeks to make that look like an accident.
Boston hosts Charlotte on Wednesday and closes the preseason in Philadelphia on October 16, which gives Brown another chance to play his old team before it counts. The first one that matters arrives November 10. Saturday night suggested that game will feel less like a reunion than a hearing.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.