The NBA just punished Jaylen Brown (but it could help the Celtics)

The NBA has fined Jaylen Brown $35,000 for his rant about how he and the Boston Celtics are officiated. Specifically, he took umbrage with the inconsistent nature of how their games against the league's top competition are adjudicated.

"I'm tired of the inconsistency. I'll accept the fine at this point," said Brown after Boston's 100-95 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday. "I hope somebody can just pull up the clips, because it's the same [expletive] every time we play a good team. It's like they refuse to make a call, then call touch fouls on the other end, and that's just extremely frustrating, bro. Like play hard. We are outplaying our expectations. We compete hard on the defensive end, and then they reward the other team with touch fouls, and we go down there, and guys are allowed to get away with it."

Perhaps, if the former Finals MVP had left it there, he would have gotten out unscathed. He has expressed his frustration with the officiating at other times this year, yet this was his first fine from the NBA this season.

Instead, at a boiling point after what he felt was the Celtics' latest injustice, he called out Saturday's crew chief, Curtis Blair, and the group that officiated their game against the Spurs.

"Every time we play a good team, the inconsistency is crazy. I'll take the [expletive] fine," declared Brown, doubling down on his willingness to pay a price to get his frustrations off his chest. "Curtis, all them dudes was terrible tonight. I don't care. They can fine me whatever they want. But it's crazy. Every time we play a good team, it's the same bull[expletive]. Somebody please pull up the clips. I'm irate at how they officiated the game today. If we can't get to the free-throw line and teams are allowed to be physical and bump us off our spots, etc., then it's hard to win games like that."

Jaylen Brown has a point about the officiating

As NBC Sports Boston's Chris Forsberg highlighted, the four-time All-Star received credit for 54 drives in consecutive games against the Spurs and Denver Nuggets. He drew one shooting foul. That equates to him going to the line on 1.9 percent of those downhill attacks. It's a shockingly low rate that doesn't pass the smell test.

Even after Brown didn't play in the Celtics' 98-96 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Monday night, he ranks third in drives per game this season, per NBA.com. However, according to Forsberg, he's only drawing a whistle on 8.9 percent of those charges to the rim.

And, to the former All-NBA Second Team selection's point, there's a noticeable discrepancy between the rate at which he's getting foul calls for the current campaign in totality and what happens against Boston's top opponents.

The Marietta, Georgia, native is attempting 7.4 free throws per contest this season. However, he earned 5.2 per game in three matchups against the Philadelphia 76ers. He averaged 6.5 in two tilts vs. the New York Knicks. In fairness, his trips to the charity stripe ballooned to 12.3 against the Detroit Pistons and 11.0 vs. the Toronto Raptors.

However, against the Minnesota Timberwolves, he took four free throws. He attempted three vs. the Nuggets and did not go to the foul line once against the Spurs.

Boston's four free throws in its loss to San Antonio matched the second-fewest in franchise history. The Celtics are attempting fewer free throws than their season average against six of the NBA's top seven teams in the standings.

It's easy to understand why Brown is frustrated. The numbers and the eye test support the theory that he and his team aren't getting as fair a whistle as they should be against the league's top competition.

Some of that is a product of human error -- these aren't robots refereeing. There's also a tendency to focus more on being slighted than on the times when one gets the benefit of the doubt or inconsistent officiating works in their favor.

Even factoring that in, Brown's point is valid. His willingness to call out the problem lightened his wallet. That didn't stop him from getting his message across. If the response from the officials, a tight-knit group that sticks up for each other, is petty, then he only made the problem worse for himself and the Celtics. However, shining a spotlight on the issue may have been what it took to solve it.

Time will tell whether Brown can have peace of mind about this matter entering future contests against Boston's best opponents or if he needs to extend an olive branch to extinguish a fire he just poured gasoline on.