Jaylen Brown was fired up after the Boston Celtics’ Wednesday night victory over the surging Detroit Pistons.
A little too fired up, perhaps.
The Celtics topped the Eastern Conference-leading Pistons 117-117 at TD Garden in Boston as part of NBA Cup action. Detroit had a chance to tie the game in the final moments when Boston’s Jordan Walsh was called for a foul on Cade Cunningham’s three-point attempt. However, Cunningham missed his third free throw, allowing the Celtics to escape with the win and hand the Pistons just their third loss of the season.
#Celtics escape with a lucky win the #NBACup Cade looked absolutely incredible but missed one free throw late to lose the game after the CORRECT shooting foul call pic.twitter.com/F4y4EVBQTm
— HoppyFrog (@TheHoppyFrog22) November 27, 2025
Afterward, Brown, who scored 33 points and grabbed 10 boards in the win, chatted with ESPN courtside reporter Alyssa Lang. Lang kicked off the postgame interview by asking what it took for his team to close out the win.
Brown’s answer was succinct and a little NSFW.
“Ball don’t lie,” he said. “Ball don’t f–king lie.”
“Ball don’t lie. Ball don’t f***ing lie.” – Jaylen Brown on the Celtics’ hard-fought win over the Pistons pic.twitter.com/aEY2PLgCXr
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 27, 2025
The good news for ESPN is that they cut away from the end of this game to another NBA game before Brown’s NSFW interview could go live, giving them plenty of time to bleep it when it replayed later on SportsCenter and elsewhere.