diff --git a/platform/lang-impl/src/com/intellij/codeInsight/highlighting/BraceMatchingUtil.java b/platform/lang-impl/src/com/intellij/codeInsight/highlighting/BraceMatchingUtil.java
index 2dbf53708181..96102b7f5e4e 100644
--- a/platform/lang-impl/src/com/intellij/codeInsight/highlighting/BraceMatchingUtil.java
+++ b/platform/lang-impl/src/com/intellij/codeInsight/highlighting/BraceMatchingUtil.java
@@ -260,9 +260,8 @@ public class BraceMatchingUtil {
     return matcher.isPairBraces(tokenType1, tokenType2);
   }
 
-  private static int getTokenGroup(IElementType tokenType, FileType fileType) {
-    BraceMatcher matcher = getBraceMatcher(fileType, tokenType);
-    return matcher.getBraceTokenGroupId(tokenType);
+  private static int getTokenGroup(@Nullable IElementType tokenType, FileType fileType) {
+    return tokenType == null ? -1 : getBraceMatcher(fileType, tokenType).getBraceTokenGroupId(tokenType);
   }
 
   // TODO: better name for this method