Following Jaylen Brown’s sudden trade, NBA fans were naturally eager to see how he would perform when he faced his former Boston Celtics team for the first time. However, when the much-anticipated time finally arrived, Brown was noticeably not at his usual level. Instead, much of the attention shifted to his decision to seemingly ignore his former teammate, Jayson Tatum, during pregame introductions. Despite the awkward moment, Brown did not hesitate to acknowledge Tatum and give credit to his former team.

After the game, Brown addressed the moment when he appeared to brush off Tatum before tip-off.

“I’m just focused on coming out and doing what’s best for my team,” Brown said. “Everything else was, to be honest, I wasn’t paying attention. But credit to Jayson, he played well tonight. Credit to the Celtics, they were the better team tonight.”

However, despite Brown’s explanation, the pregame interaction is likely to remain a major talking point for at least the next few days. The moment also came up during Tatum’s postgame press conference, as reporters wanted to hear his reaction to the exchange.

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When asked about Brown seemingly shrugging him off before the game, the Celtics star played down the incident and made it clear that his attention was on the matchup rather than the pregame interaction.

“Like I said, no headlines about anything like that,” Tatum said. “I was just getting ready for the game, ready for the jump ball, go out there, compete, have some fun, and try to get a win.”