Jae Crowder

Boston Celtics forward Jae Crowder (99) jokes with teammates during the first quarter of NBA basketball game in Boston, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017.

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The rocky relationship between the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards has progressed to the (totally bizarre) point where John Wall, Bradley Beal and their teammates have decided to wear all black funeral attire to Tuesday night's showdown between the two teams.

Despite all the drama, Celtics wing Jae Crowder -- who got into a scuffle with Wall after beating the Wizards earlier this month -- laughed when asked for his reaction to the Wizards clothing choice.

"That don't affect me," Crowder said. "It don't affect us. If that's what they want to do, that's what's up."

Ironically, Crowder wore black to the Celtics shootaround Tuesday morning. With a laugh, he said, "I wear black all the time. I'm going to have black on, too."

But the Wizards will all be wearing it in hopes of sending a message.

"That's cute," Crowder said. "We're just gonna play basketball, get a win, man. Nothing else to it."

The strange Celtics-Wizards beef dates back to last season, at least, and now includes many layers of trash talk and physicality. The all-black clothing only represents the latest step in a back-and-forth between the two clubs. Like Crowder, Boston star Thomas seemed amused by the Wizards' decision.

"That's cute that they're wearing all black," Thomas said. "It's definitely not no Game 7 or the playoffs, but if they want to take it that serious then they can."

"It's just all talk -- that's all it is. I guess they're taking and running with it. I saw the funeral and all-black thing last night, and I just laughed about it. We'll just be there tonight at (7) for a game," Thomas added. "We hoop. We hoop. I hoop. Talking is a part of the game, but we don't have to talk about no funeral or wearing all black, that's not even called for. They can do that -- we can't control that. We'll go out and play and hopefully get a win."

Not surprisingly, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens downplayed the impact of all the verbal sparring, but the dislike has been obvious in every recent meeting.

"It was just talk (that triggered the postgame scuffle between Crowder and Wall)," Thomas said. "People said some things they shouldn't have said, but I'm always about keeping it hoop. I'm fine with talking. I grew up on the best trash talker ever in Gary Payton. I know how to do that, and I can continue to play while talking. As long as we keep it to hoop we can talk all we want. It doesn't bother me as long as it's about basketball and as long as we keep it clean out there."

"I don't care," Stevens said. "It's between the lines, what happens between the lines that matters. I think that ultimately that's the beautiful thing about a game is that it starts out 0-0 and there's a winner and a loser at the end. And you have to play really well to have a chance to win. So all that stuff to me is irrelevant. I just think you have to play well."