Jaylen Brown has been wearing a protective face mask over the past few games to prevent further injury on a nasal fractured he suffered courtesy of an inadvertent elbow from Boston Celtics teammate Jayson Tatum several weeks ago. On Wednesday night, Brown took another elbow to the face, this time coming from Minnesota Timberwolves big man Rudy Gobert. This particular shot, however, did not look like it was accidental.

Brown immediately hit the deck after being on the receiving end of a wayward elbow from Gobert. As soon as he got up, the Celtics All-Star decided to confront Gobert for his antics:

It's honestly hard to tell in the replay if Gobert purposefully lifted his elbow as he was running through Brown. It was a clear hit to the face, though, and given Jaylen Brown's injury history, it comes as no surprise that he felt aggrieved by what he believes was an intentional hit from Gobert.

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Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed after the two were separated by teammates. It wasn't before both men had an intense face-to-face moment on the court, though.

Both teams enter Wednesday's contest in need of a win with positioning in their respective conferences at play. The Celtics are currently chasing the No. 1 seed Milwaukee Bucks for the top spot in the East, and they are currently three games behind Giannis and Co. The Timberwolves, on the other hand, have even more motivation to win after falling to the 11th spot in the West. Minnesota needs to keep stacking up the wins in the coming weeks if they want to keep their playoff hopes alive.