The Orlando Magic pulled off the biggest upset of the day on Friday after taking down the mighty Boston Celtics on their own home floor, 117-109. The top-seeded Celtics came away disappointed after the loss, which may have had a lot to do with the fact that starting center Al Horford was ejected from the game after just 16 minutes of action.
After the game, Jayson Tatum shared his brutally honest thoughts on the ejection. The Celtics superstar clearly wasn't happy about the call, and he wasn't shy about being vocal about it:
“That was unbelievable,” Tatum said. “I couldn’t believe Al got thrown out of the game. I didn’t think that was warranted, especially once they went to go review and they saw that Mo fouled him first. That’s why I got to shoot free throws. So I mean, sometimes guy get tired of people grabbing on him and the ref not seeing it, so (expletive) as a grown man, you take it into his own hands and get somebody up off of you, and that’s all he did, just got him up off him because he was getting fouled. I don’t think Al deserved to get thrown out of the game at all.”
Tatum was harsh, but he was also very careful with his words. It doesn't sound like he's going to be fined for his statement here, but the three-time All-Star was still able to air out his frustration about the call.
Here's a look at Horford delivering a nasty elbow to the nether regions of Magic forward Mo Wagner:
All of a sudden, the mighty Celtics are struggling. They have now lost three out of their last four games. Despite the recent cold streak, however, Tatum doesn't believe this has become a trend for his team:
“It was all about tonight, what was going on, Al getting kick out of the game, I didn’t think that was the right call,” he said. “So it didn’t have anything to do with before the game started, we just lost the game.”
The Celtics will need to dust themselves off quickly after this deflating loss, which also happened to feature the return of Robert Williams. They get Saturday off before returning to action on Sunday in a rematch against the Magic. At this point, Tatum already knows the adjustments his team needs to make:
“We got to pick up our intensity, I think,” Tatum said. “We was just guarding them too low. We have a bunch of great defenders — we have to guard them outside the three. I think we were just too low. Even guys that aren’t necessarily great shooters, they still can make shots when given that much space.”
The Celtics still have the best record in the league at 22-8. However, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks are now breathing down their necks and are just a game behind them. The rest of the pack is catching up as well with just 5.5 games separating Boston from the sixth-seed New York Knicks.
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