Beef is back on the menu in the NBA .
It’s rare for a November game to feel like a Game 7 playoff tilt, but Tuesday night’s showdown in Philadelphia between the 76ers and Boston Celtics certainly delivered that kind of electric atmosphere in spades. The first meeting between Jaylen Brown’s 76ers and Jayson Tatum’s Boston Celtics was the first time the former teammates would square off since Brown was sent packing from Beantown over the summer.
It was the kind of interpersonal drama that takes an entire writers room of reality television producers to conjure up.
After being teammates for nine years, Brown was shopped around the league by the Boston front office before eventually being dealt to Philadelphia in exchange for Paul George and four draft picks. The former University of California star had very obviously blamed Tatum for forcing him out of Boston, even as Tatum claimed ignorance of the efforts to trade Brown until the moment it happened.
An ensuing back-and-forth through the press and on social media – sometimes in emoji form – escalated things in the weeks leading up to the game. That sniping through the press and on Instagram made it the most anticipated coming together of former teammates since Kevin Durant signed with the Golden Warriors and went back to Oklahoma City to face Russell Westbrook and the Thunder.
And while the game ended up being a blowout – Boston went on a huge run at the end of the third quarter and into the fourth quarter to win 123-101 – the real excitement came in the moments before tipoff.
As Brown spun the game ball on his finger before tip, Tatum approached. The ensuing interaction was … icy.
It was emblematic of the whole beef between these two, as Tatum has repeatedly attempted to take the high road while Brown has made his antipathy for the Celtics star known. Tatum said in a podcast that he was caught off guard by the trade that sent Brown to Philly, and when that clip was posted to Instagram, Brown left a comment with a cap emoji (his way of calling Tatum a liar).
When asked about Brown’s comment, Tatum said “there’s no beef” between the pair that played together in Boston for nine years. In reply, Brown agreed there was no beef but “it might be a little bit of lamb chops and gravy,” added that Tatum had a great public relations team and cryptically said the former Duke star should “stay ready at all times.”
It’s still not really clear what sparked Brown’s departure from Boston. He played Robin to Tatum’s Batman for many years before Tatum’s Achilles injury in 2025 knocked him out for most of last season. That allowed Brown to take center stage in Beantown and it’s possible that he was done being the secondary star to Tatum. There have been lots of other rumblings out of Boston – that Brown was moody and a difficult personality, that Tatum felt challenged and wanted him out – that no one has ever gone on the record to confirm.
Brown and Tatum both downplayed the moment and their less-than-joyful meetup.
“I’m just focused on getting out and doing what’s best for my team … to be honest, I wasn’t paying attention, but, you know, credit to Jason, he played well tonight,” a frustrated Brown said when asked about the moment.
He downplayed the idea of having more emotion for the game, which was derailed for him by early foul trouble, but admitted, “I was looking forward to this, I was looking forward to playing well but sh*t happens.”
“No headlines about anything like that,” Tatum said of the moment between him and Brown. “I was just getting ready for the game, ready for jump ball, go out there, compete, have some fun, and try to get a win.”
Still, Tatum told reporters the game felt like an NBA Finals game. And that’s the point – beef is good.
The NBA Playoffs are a remarkable exhibition of athletic competition, but the league’s regular season is often just a monthslong bit of positioning for that springtime push. It often seems to only exist for The Discourse: Is load management good? Who’s going to get traded? Who’s going to win MVP? What teams are obviously tanking?
Those questions drive the conversation; the games themselves don’t matter a ton until the calendar turns to March and April.
But when there are real rivalries and real drama playing out on the court – such as what happened with Tatum and Brown, even though both tried to move on afterward – then the games really matter. That’s how you get a crowd in the City of Brotherly Love to treat an early season game like it was a title-clincher.
Both teams brought it in that vein until – like any good bit of reality TV – the main storyline was turned on its head by an unexpected participant.
The real winner of the night was George, the man often forgotten in the trade drama.
The 36-year-old went off for 36 points and helped put the finishing touches on the massive run in the third and fourth quarters that put the kibosh on the 76ers’ attempt to get back in the game.
