Fresh off his first selection as an All-Star starter, Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown wasted no time reminding everyone why he’d earned that honor through the first half of the season.
Brown logged a 23-point triple-double to lead his team to a dominant 121-110 win over the Golden State Warriors. Any triple double is impressive. It’s a rare feat that the five-time All-Star has accomplished just five times in his 10-year pro career.
What we all witnessed in San Francisco Thursday was a triple-double on steroids. Brown not only set a new career-high in assists with 13, but also tied a career-high and set a season-high for rebounds with 15.
“He had a clear understanding of what the advantage was every time down the floor,” Joe Mazzulla praised postgame
For someone who’s led from the front all season long, this was just another example of JB understanding exactly what the Celtics needed at any given point of the game. He played a crucial role in the early-game offense with eight points and four rebounds in the opening quarter.
“[Golden State] challenges your ability to make rim reads,” he continued. “It challenges your ability to play two on one. And tonight, he just did a great job of finding that whether it was for himself or for others. I thought the pace and the poise with which he played at was at a high level. You could see it in real time, where the game just completely slowed down for him, and he was able to just recognize where the two on one was every single time.”
Brown's rebounding focus remains underrated
Then, as his teammates got hot in the middle quarters, he differed more and picked his spots as a scorer when needed, while hitting the glass hard.
“We're at our best when he defends at a high level and takes accountability and his rebounding. I thought his rebounding was great tonight, defensively, offensively.”
Mazzulla wasn’t lying. Not only was Thursday’s outing a dominant one for the entire squad, but it joined a long list of examples of how far Brown’s effort on the glass can go. It was the former No. 3 overall pick’s 10th double-digit rebounding game of the year. In those games, the Celtics have lost just once (Jan. 19 vs. Detroit, 104-103).
It makes sense, right?
The Celtics, when they struggled this year, were most vulnerable on the glass. They had difficulty closing out defensive possessions and it hurt them. As a leader, Brown’s taken it upon himself to put an added emphasis on that part of his game. Since Boston really hit its stride as a unit at the beginning of December, JB is averaging 7.3 rebounds per game compared to just 5.8 per outing prior.
His focus is real.
So is his pride in this team and the direction it’s headed.
"We came out and just were aggressive, played great basketball,” Brown said in the locker room. “I like the way our team is looking right now. Offensively, we finding our pace, finding our flow, we got some good practices under our belt, so we’re starting to find our rhythm. Defensively, we’ve still got some growing to do, but we should have some good tests coming up."