Jaylen Brown lifts lid on Celtics' locker-room drama

Jaylen Brown revealed emotions were running high in the locker room after the Boston Celtics fell 2-0 down in their Eastern Conference finals series against the Miami Heat.

The Celtics squandered a half-time lead once again as they were beaten 106-101 at Walt Disney World Resort on Thursday.

The Heat trailed by 17 points in the second quarter and were down by 13 at the midway point but overcame the deficit to seize control against the Celtics thanks to Bam Adebayo, who added 15 third-quarter points.

Brown conceded the Celtics had taken the result hard, amid reports guard Marcus Smart had been seen storming out of the locker room.

Our team discusses what went wrong during the third quarter tonight and how they can turn things around for Game 3. pic.twitter.com/fssTqkcEVz

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) September 18, 2020

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"It's really just a lot of emotions just flying around," Brown said, per ESPN.

"Obviously we feel like we could have won, we should have won, but we didn't. So just a lot of emotions flying around. That's it."

Speaking about the challenge that now faces the Celtics to turn the series around, he added: "We just got to be sound, execute and stay together. That's it. We feel confident about our abilities, we feel confident about our game plan.

"We just haven't executed it to the extent that we know we can. Two games, we came up short towards the end of the game, and we're looking forward to Game 3. We've gotta find a way to win.

"We just haven't played a full 48 minutes of being locked in and executing the game plan. I feel like maybe about 75 per cent, we played really well.

"It's always one quarter or one sequence of events where we have lapses, and against this team, we can't have those.

"If we take that away, we'll win."

Kemba Walker posted 23 points for the Celtics, who had a chance to tie the game with 15 seconds remaining but Brown missed a three-pointer as Jimmy Butler sealed Miami's victory via a pair of free throws.

However, Walker dismissed the idea that it had been a close-run contest.

"Man, they outplayed us," he said. "They outplayed us. It's really unacceptable on our behalf. It was just a really bad quarter for us.

"We didn't continue to do the things that we did to get us up and get us that lead. I think we got kind of comfortable, and those guys, they took great advantage of it.

"They played hard. They played really hard. They played a lot harder than us. They wanted it."