Jayson Tatum keeps trying to smooth things over with Jaylen Brown, but his former Celtics teammate doesn’t seem ready to bury the hatchet. After Brown had a negative reaction to Tatum’s perspective on the trade that sent him to the Sixers, Tatum tried to quash the dispute following Friday night’s game with New York, writes Jay King of The Athletic.

“For me, it’s like I don’t have any animosity or beef or ill will towards him,” Tatum said. “And I think the frustrating part is since he’s not with the Celtics anymore, the narrative or conversations haven’t been enough about what we’ve accomplished, all the games we won, winning a championship, how we’ve grown together. And it’s turned into this drama type of thing.”

Tatum told reporters that he called and texted Brown on the day of the trade, adding, “at this point in our lives, we’re too old to be having our relationship discussed X, Y and Z on the internet.” He also said, “This ain’t no f—ing Shaq and Kobe. Like, there’s no beef.”

Asked about those comments after the Sixers’ game on Saturday, Brown responded, “He’s got a great PR team. There’s no beef … but there might be some lamb chops and gravy” (Twitter video link from ESPN’s Dave McMenamin).

There’s more from Philadelphia:

• With another contest looming Sunday night, LeBron James sat out his first game since joining the Sixers, per Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer (subscription required). The official reason was to manage his lower back and sciatica, but at age 41, James is unlikely to play in any back-to-backs this season. Dean Wade, who has been dealing with an ankle issue, made his Sixers debut on Saturday and replaced James in the starting lineup.
• With James unavailable, Joel Embiid took a greater role in facilitating the offense and finished with the 11th triple double of his career, Mizell adds in a separate story. Embiid played 36 minutes tonight, so he’ll likely miss Sunday’s game, although coach Nick Nurse said that decision hasn’t been made yet. Embiid was lobbying to be active in his postgame session with reporters, relays Kris Rhim of ESPN (Twitter link). “I actually wanna play tomorrow,” he said, “can you guys put some pressure on them?” 
• Jabari Walker, who has been seeing time as a small-ball center, didn’t return after leaving the game in the third quarter, Rhim adds (Twitter video link). Nurse said Walker “tweaked” his left knee, but didn’t provide any other details.