Jaylen Brown Reacts to Celtics' Loss as Fan's 'Mistake Thread' Trends After 76ers' Playoff Win

Only two years removed from winning Finals MVP, Jaylen Brown may once again be a lightning rod among frustrated fans of the Boston Celtics.

Boston's collapse was complete Saturday as it lost 109-100 to the Philadelphia 76ers. Prior to that, the Celtics were 32-0 in playoff series when building a 3-1 lead.

Despite the season coming to such a disappointing end, Brown told reporters he had "no feelings of regret whatsoever."

"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," he said. "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."

76ers-Celtics Highlights

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Brown didn't play that badly in Game 7. He finished with 33 points, nine rebounds, four assists and three blocks.

The five-time All-Star might nonetheless have to hear a lot of chatter during the offseason. On-off splits aren't a surefire indicator of a player's impact, but the difference with Brown was glaring when he's such an important piece for the Celtics.

One fan went so far as to start a "Jaylen Brown mistake thread" on social media, which is exactly what it sounds. The fan's exasperation grew as the night unfolded:

In the years before the Celtics finally got over the hump and won the 2024 Finals, Brown was a regular source of trade speculation. Jayson Tatum was pretty much untouchable, so his fellow "Jay" was the headline piece included in any hypothetical blockbuster trade.

Lifting a title put that idea to bed for a while, and Tatum's Achilles injury precluded any Brown-centric discourse resulting from last year's second-round exit.

Now, the old questions may begin to resurface.

The irony is that Boston overachieved this year. With Tatum widely expected to miss the entire season, the franchise appeared to be resetting. Instead, it won 56 games and claimed the No. 2 seed in the East, thus raising hopes of another Finals run.

The Celtics have quickly become victims of their own success, and Brown figures to feature squarely in big-picture conversations about the organization's short-term direction.