Jason Kidd insists his comments between Game 1 and Game 2 about Jaylen Brown being the best player on the Boston Celtics wasn't an attempt to play mind games. 

“It wasn’t mind games,” Kidd told The Athletic on Tuesday after the Dallas Mavericks' practice. “But for whatever reason, everybody took it that way. Everybody was speculating, and no one really asked me that.”

Kidd and Brown also have a real relationship dating back to Brown's time at Cal.

“My whole thing was that, watching the Eastern Conference (playoffs), like, he has been (the Celtics’ best player),” Kidd said. “No one ever said I was wrong. Even their player said I wasn’t lying.”