Everyone knew one of the Boston Celtics young wings were going to pop this year and so far Jaylen Brown has the edge – and it’s not close.
The 2018-19 season wasn’t easy for anyone who was a member of the Boston Celtics organization last year. Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you most people were never happy for one reason or another.
Players weren’t getting their preferred roles, others may have had their needs placed on a pedestal, and the development of the team’s lottery selections got put to a grinding halt.
This couldn’t have been more true with third-year forward, Jaylen Brown. After coming off somewhat of a breakthrough regular season in his sophomore campaign, and an even better post-season, people were expecting more from Brown than what he showed.
As the Celtics struggled to a 10-10 start, Brown’s play epitomized the team’s struggles behind the scenes. Boston’s most inconsistent player averaged only 11 points on a putrid 39% from the field and 28% from behind the arc through the first two months of the season.
On the court he never looked comfortable, and appeared to be pressing to impact the game the way he thought was right.
On top of the lackluster play, rumors continued to sizzle behind Kyrie Irving‘s bristling with the young players–specifically Brown–who seemed to be one of the only players to push back against Irving’s comments publicly.
Through all the criticism and early season struggles, you still heard nothing out of Brown. Later drew praise from Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge on his handling of the situation.
"“He might have handled a difficult situation better than anybody on our team last year,” Ainge said during a recent taping of The Michael Holley Podcast (h/t Dave Green of Yahoo Sports) along side Celtics managing partners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca. “Very mature kid, wants to be great, knows that his time is coming.”"
The inconsistency was strange for a player like Brown, who’s desire to be great has always produced a spark when things around him on the court grew dimmer.
In Brown’s rookie year in 2017, for example, he didn’t always see consistent playing time. However, when the team was getting smacked around by LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Brown seemed like the only player in the series that still believed they had a chance.
The fabled 2018 playoff run often draws praise for Jayson Tatum and his maturation as a rookie. It was Brown that was the leading scorer in the Milwaukee series, averaging 20 points through the first six games until a hamstring injury shelved him for game seven.
Brown was the one who stood up to James’ response game in game two of the Eastern Conference finals after a 25 point loss to the underdog Celtics. As James erupted for 21 first quarter points–a sequence we’ve seen demoralize countless teams in the past–Brown responded with 13 points of his own to keep the score tight.
It wasn’t until Brown’s role changed from starter to bench player last year that things started to click. From December on, Brown averaged just shy of 14 points per game with much better shooting splits of 49/38/67, not to mention his disruptive defense.
Now, after all the trials and tribulations, Brown is finally getting his chance…and he’s taking full advantage of it.
A major topic that had been harped on all summer was the Boston Celtics needing to get to the rim more. More paint touches leads to more free throws and more kick outs to open shooters; pretty standard stuff.
In the midst of last years season from hell, the team just couldn’t get that mantra to sink in. Boston ranked second to last in free throw attempts last year at 19.5.
Through the first three games of the new season, the Celtics are averaging 26.5 attempts; a number that would have placed third last year. I understand the caveat of small sample size and of course all the numbers are inflated (Miami is averaging 37 free throws per game), but you can see the difference in mindset so far this year.
Last year the Celtics were fourth last in drives per game with about 38, that number is up to 50.3, good enough for seventh best across the league, via NBA.com.
Brown has been at the forefront of that change in philosophy.
Brown has averaged 10.3 drives per game so far in 2019-20. A drastic increase from last year averaging only 5.1. As a result, he’s going to be shooting a lot more free throws.
Per 100 possessions, Brown is averaging a career high 6.5 free throw attempts per game – he just attempted eight in Boston’s recent victory over the New York Knicks.
A huge part in Brown’s success is how he’s driving to the rim.
His first three seasons, Brown appeared to have one gear: fast. It made for some good highlight plays, but it did produce a fair amount of lowlights to go with them.
If Brown wasn’t dunking over someone, he was losing the ball on his way up, getting stripped on the way there, or blowing an easy lay up as a result of driving too fast and out of control.
In years past Brown’s eyes would have lit up and perhaps forced a tougher shot by trying to just jump over Marc Gasol. Instead, Brown uses his elite burst to get around Gasol after freezing him with a slight hesitation once he gets in the paint.
Brown shows similar craftiness on Stanley Johnson on this drive in the half court. The hesitation to in and out seems to be one of Brown’s go-to moves off the bounce.
It works to perfection here as Brown is able to bump Johnson and threaten a little jump hook with the pump fake once he’s in the lane. Johnson bites on it, and Brown is able to set himself up for an easy hoop plus the foul.
(I think this is my favorite offensive sequence by Brown yet.)
In semi-transition, Brown sees Elfrid Payton coming over from the top to help Kevin Knox contain the drive. Recognizing this, Brown comes to a near halt threatening the pass back out to Kemba Walker which forces Payton to back off.
At the same time, Brown is also using his eyes to sell the potential lob pass to Robert Williams which is what causes Knox to come out of his stance and extend his arms up.
Brown is athletic enough to where if you give him just an inch of space, he’s going to exploit it as he does here to get past Knox. Brown also has the IQ to pump fake Mitchell Robinson who is one of the best young shot blockers in the league, and jump into Knox on the finish to seal him off.
Truly awesome stuff for a player who used to be mostly just an athlete on the court!
While Jayson Tatum was expected to be the young wing to explode out of the gate (his underperformance so far is another story), it’s more than just savvy drives to the hoop that is setting Brown apart from Tatum and everyone else on the roster.
Brown has also displayed better vision and playmaking with the ball in his hands. In 2018-19, Brown was only averaging 1.8 passes out of drives per game, via NBA.com. That number is at nearly five a game to start the season.
In this screen and roll, Brown does an excellent job reading whether or not Alonzo Trier is going to slide down to take away the lob, or stay attached to Tatum on the wing. He waits just long enough to see Trier stunt at the roll but never commit as Brown makes a nice pass to Grant Williams for an and one.
This is just an amazing bounce pass by Brown that I can’t stop watching.
It feels weird to not start talking about defense with Brown, but his offensive improvements have been really refreshing and caught me a little off guard.
That being said, his defense has been just as excellent. Outside of Marcus Smart, Brown is the Boston Celtics’ top defensive player, but I think there’s an argument to be made that he’s been the best given how many positions he’s guarded.
There was chatter during the FIBA tournament that Brown would see more minutes at power forward for the Celtics as he excelled at it while with Team USA.
So far he has not disappointed. Through three games Brown has guarded players ranging from Al Horford, Julius Randle, Pascal Siakam, and his usual assignments on the perimeter.
His defense against Siakam is what has impressed me the most.
According to NBA.com’s advanced box score match ups, Brown guarded Siakam a game high five and a half minutes. In this time Siakam scored 12 points on 41% shooting, but those even those numbers are a little inflated.
Siakam a career 31% three-point shooter shot a blazing hot 5-7 from three on his way to 33 points. Two of those shots were against Brown. For the most part, Brown did a fine job playing physical with Siakam and not getting overpowered.
Brown stays with Siakam step for step and force him to commit the cardinal sin of leaving your feet to force a pass.
Foul trouble for Brown has crept up in two of the Celtics’ three games but assuming he gets that under control, there’s a strong argument to be made that Brown has been the best player on both ends.
A player that many people wanted off the team to start last season due to many different factors, may just be the catalyst for the Boston Celtics for years to come.