CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Whatever love existed between the Boston Celtics and Grant Williams disappeared, at least temporarily, late Friday night in the fourth quarter. After Williams was ejected for a hard foul on Jayson Tatum with 2:02 remaining in the Celtics’ 124-109 win against the Hornets, Jaylen Brown approached his former teammate to let him know he took offense to the excessive contact .

Williams would later mention the extent of his mistake as unintentional, but Brown saw the game very differently. He said he told Williams, “That was some bulls.”

“It was definitely intentional,” Brown said. “What are we talking about here? Have you all seen the same play as me? He hit him like it was a football game, like Ray Lewis coming up the middle or something. It is what it is. Grant knows better than that.’

Williams said he was trying to make a play in transition. He said he believed the foul looked worse because he hit Tatum while he was in the middle of passing, and that the foul wouldn’t have been so hard “if (Tatum) had prepared and turned his head to the left” while Williams chased him.

“It was just a tough foul,” Williams said. ‘And tomorrow we’ll play them again. It’s nothing crazy or beyond the means. We all know JT is my husband, so nothing intentional.”

The Celtics players did not believe Williams’ claim that the foul was not intentional. How much did his blatant statement bother his former team? Tatum, who normally fulfills his media obligations when asked to speak, declined to answer questions from the small group of reporters in Charlotte. Brown, who played alongside Williams for four seasons, even went so far as to question his former teammate’s friendship with Tatum. Williams called Tatum one of his best friends in the NBA.

“Actions speak loudly,” Brown said. “So it is what it is. We achieved victory, we move on, but there is no place for that in the game. I thought he and JT were friends. I don’t think so.”

Grant Williams called Jayson Tatum one of his best friends in basketball. (Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)

Did Brown say that as a joke? Maybe. But he was so agitated after the flagrant 2 foul that assistant coach Tony Dobbins felt the need to walk far onto the field to stand in front of Brown and make sure he wouldn’t escalate the situation. The Celtics players took the incident seriously. Neemias Queta, near Williams at the time of the match, said the foul was “not cool at all.” Derrick White agreed with his teammates that Williams “obviously wasn’t going for the ball.”

“He’s just too big to do stuff like that,” White said. ‘And he knows that. But JB always has our back. And we always know that. And we always have JT behind us.”

In an interview with Kayla Burton of NBC Sports Boston, Williams suggested that he initially planned to host some Celtics players at his home in Charlotte after Friday’s game, but assumed they wouldn’t take him up on the invitation after Tempers on the field had flared. With another matchup between the two teams in Charlotte on Saturday, the schedule would have given the players a rare opportunity to hang out after the game… if they wanted to.

The Celtics were good friends with Williams before the game, as usual. He was hesitant to fully walk into their shootout Friday morning, but paused White’s latest routine — a baseball game — to share a fun moment with his former teammate near the Spectrum Center field. Williams and Brown hugged and played a quick game of Rock, Paper, Scissors when they saw each other before the game.

Grant Williams greets Jaylen Brown and immediately beats him in a game of rock-paper-scissors lol pic.twitter.com/m8eRdLg90Z

— Noa Dalzell 🏀 (@NoaDalzell) November 1, 2024

Much of Friday seemed like a reunion, and not just for Williams and his former team. Hornets head coach Charles Lee was Joe Mazzulla’s assistant last season. Several Celtics players expressed how happy they were to see Lee get the opportunity to lead his own team. Sam Hauser called Lee “one of the nicest guys in the world, honestly.”

During one season with the Celtics, Lee left a mark on the team. Mazzulla said the coach was instrumental in Jrue Holiday’s adjustment to Boston; Having a familiar face helped Holiday adjust to his new surroundings after a stunning trade from Milwaukee shortly before last season started. Before joining the Celtics staff, Lee worked closely with Holiday as a Bucks assistant.

Holiday said he always advocated for Lee, 39, when other teams inquired about potentially hiring him as head coach. Interestingly, given that Lee is a basketball coach, Holiday’s strongest support for him did not involve the sport itself. Holiday highlighted everything else about the coach.

“Honestly, that he’s a great person,” Holiday said. “He is a family man. You’ve seen him in multiple organizations and he’s loved in multiple organizations. He is loved by players across the league. I feel like he’s a family man, and my family is very close to his, so maybe I’m biased. But I think that environment that brings that to an organization means a lot.”

Before tip-off, it was all love between the Celtics and Hornets. Tatum rarely interrupts his training during the morning shootaround, but had good reason to do so on Friday. Kemba Walker, Tatum’s teammate in Boston for two seasons, had come onto the field to say hello to some old friends. At the half-court logo, Tatum paused from his drills to hug his buddy.

It’s not normal for an opposing coach to show up at a team’s shootaround, but Walker is not a normal opposing coach. Moreover, circumstances ensured that he would do this. The Hornets, whose coaching staff he joined in July after announcing his retirement as a player, had just completed their own shootaround on another court inside Spectrum Center. Although his time in Boston did not last long, Walker remains well-liked within the organization. Celtics players and staff lit up when they saw him. He jumped from one person to another, handing out hugs and his signature smile to everyone he met on the field. Before leaving, he then announced his ambitious plans for the night.

“We’re going to beat you up,” Walker said.

That was just friendly banter. For the Celtics, Williams’ actions crossed the line. Playing with him and against him, they know that his physicality sometimes borders on excessive. Before Brown played him for the first time last January, when Williams was still playing for the Mavericks, he said he liked Williams but expected him to have “a nasty game.” After the Celtics defeated Dallas, Brown said he thought Williams was “a little extra” on a few plays during the game. Brown said he expected some of that from Williams, and that “Grant would try to be Grant.”

“But it’s all love,” Brown said at the time. “I know he’s trying to help his team win, so he’s done a lot of that for them this season. That’s how he made a name for himself. And I wish him the best. As their season progresses, I’m sure they’ll need a little more of that. So I think Grant was just trying to get his team going. That’s all.”

The Celtics didn’t have the same tone on Friday. They were upset about the way Williams landed directly on Tatum. At least this soon after the play, they weren’t ready to let it go.

They liked how they gathered around each other after the hard contact. Mazzulla said what he liked most was that Tatum immediately jumped up after the foul and walked straight to the free throw line to handle his business.

“It didn’t really upset him,” Mazzulla said.

The Celtics coach also appreciated the way Brown defended Tatum and the way the team held its own after the game.

“As long as we support each other,” Mazzulla said, “that’s all that matters.”

Brown, who agreed with his coach that the Celtics handled the moment well, said such a play “brings out a side of our team that we need.” He said teams need “a little edge,” “a little chippiness” and “a little fight.” He said he welcomes such tests.

“First of all, it’s us against the world,” Brown said. “So as a leader, like everyone else on my side, I ride for all my guys in the locker room. Teams like to send messages. They try to set the tone and do all kinds of different things to take us out of character or mess with our minds or make us feel soft or whatever. We’re not going for any of that. That’s it: we just don’t go for it. So that’s all I would say.”

Even if the harsh offense comes from an old friend.

(Top photo of Grant Williams fouling Jayson Tatum late in the fourth quarter: Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)