Boston Celtics future-star Jaylen Brown has his best performance with Team USA’s 84-68 victory over Canada on Monday, recording 19 points on 8-11 shooting while showing positional versatility as well as a new bag of tricks offensively.
Many have focused on the history of young players having breakout seasons after playing for the national team, and have already attached fellow Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum to that group.
Brown may turn out being one of the main beneficiaries of playing on this team.
There are two different things that continue to stand out in regards to Brown’s game as we get further and further into these exhibition games.
The first being his willingness to employ new moves off the dribble to shake loose from his defender. It’s no secret that through his first few seasons, Brown has gotten most of his points off spot up threes or straight line drives.
Very rarely has he been able to consistently beat different defenders with some advanced moves off the dribble. So far with Team USA, however, he’s looked more comfortable being more aggressive with the ball in his hands.
Brown did this on several occasions though this was the best one. This stop and start move is deadly in the hands of a player who drives as hard as Brown does.
Some of that ties into that he was typically being guarded by slower players, which is a perfect transition to my second point.
Brown has played a lot of power forward so far with Team USA. That has been a talking point surrounding Brown for the past couple seasons now, but perhaps this will be the push both he and Brad Stevens both need to make it a permanent staple with the Boston Celtics.
According to Basketball Reference, Brown hasn’t spent any time at the four since his rookie season. This would be a way for Brown to open up more minutes for himself considering Boston’s five best players (Kemba Walker, Gordon Hayward, Marcus Smart, Tatum, Brown) are all perimeter oriented.
Schematically, this would allow the Boston Celtics to deploy any of their three best wings as a small ball four and giving Stevens the opportunity to experiment with a bevy of small lineups. Hayward, Tatum, and Brown all give the offense a different look and feel, making it harder for defense to get comfortable.
With Kyle Kuzma recently withdrawing from the team, the US has trimmed it’s roster to the required 12 player limit. As the actual tournament start date gets closer and closer, it will be interesting if Brown continues to excel in a different position than he is accustom to.
More importantly, how that may translate to his games with Boston.