BOSTON — Jaylen Brown’s scoring average has dropped. He has handed out fewer assists per game. Never mind. He will not judge himself based on counting stats. He believes he is now seeing the game differently. He believes his improvements will pay off not just for him, but for his team.
“I feel like on both sides of the ball,” Brown told The Athletic on Wednesday after practice, “I’m playing the best basketball of my life.”
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Brown still wants to be himself. Still wants to look for his own offense. Still wants to get out in transition and let his God-given talents take over. But Brown also has set out to add another layer of understanding to his game. It hasn’t led yet to better individual numbers, but he believes those will come. Even if they don’t, he said he will be OK with that. He wants to play a brand of basketball that will give the Boston Celtics the best chance of success when the postseason arrives.
“I feel like I’m a different player,” Brown said. “I still have the same essence. That aggressiveness is where my tone is always going to be, but I’m seeing the floor, making the right reads, trying to get others involved all at the same time.”
This isn’t last year. It’s not the playoffs. Without prompting, Brown repeated that message twice during a conversation at the Celtics practice facility. He has always put in work to develop his game, but it’s clear Boston’s Eastern Conference finals loss to the Miami Heat propelled him to evolve.
It wasn’t just that the Celtics fell, but the way they did. They dropped the first three games of the series before storming back with three straight wins. They had a chance on their home court to become the first team to complete a comeback from a 3-0 series deficit but were thoroughly outclassed in Game 7 after Jayson Tatum sprained his ankle in the opening minute. Brown scored 19 points on 8-for-23 shooting in the defeat. He committed eight turnovers, giving him 25 turnovers for the series compared to 24 assists. After Game 7, he said he “let the whole city down.” When the Celtics needed him to make more plays, he said then, he “failed.”
The Heat switched defensive coverages constantly. Brown called them a “very well-coached team, more so than all the other teams we’ve faced in the playoffs.” He said the series taught him a lot.
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“For the most part,” Brown said, “reading the game.”
He took the lessons to heart.
“It just inspired growth,” Brown said. “It just inspired me to work hard. I probably worked the hardest I’ve ever worked this summer. My body’s changed. Athletically, I feel like I’m entering my prime, at peak athleticism. I’m running, I’m jumping, I’m defending. I’m guarding my ass off. I’m in the right spots. I’m more aware on defense. I’m more aware on offense. It just inspired me. Inspiration to improve is what it was. That’s how bad it stung to come up short the way we did, but I wouldn’t take anything back. Everything is for a reason … a part of being a human being is just learning and growing. And that’s how I approach everything in life.”
During the regular season, Brown said teams realistically won’t defend the Celtics as the Heat did during the playoffs. He still wants to prepare himself for the tests ahead.
“It starts in practice, every day with the reads,” Brown said. “Just a heightened awareness of always trying to read the game, always trying to read what’s in front of you. Just being a student of the game.”
Brown has aimed to improve at diagnosing coverages. After practices, he can often be seen working with several Celtics coaches on his reads. They defend him in all sorts of different ways. It’s on him to recognize the coverages and find a solution. He said he spends time doing similar work with the big men he often plays through, Al Horford and Kristaps Porziņģis, and with sharpshooters like Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard. With the number of scorers the Celtics have, Brown said he will sometimes need to be a table setter instead.
“We’ve got a lot of players that we’re going to need to contribute,” Brown said. “I still want to maintain my aggressiveness because that’s a part of who I am, but also finding those guys in space, on time, with great deliveries, allowing them to be able to play free and play with confidence.”
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Brown’s assist numbers haven’t bumped up yet. He is averaging 4.6 assists per 100 possessions compared to 4.7 last season. After he totaled zero assists while attempting 43 combined shots over the two most recent Celtics games, ESPN shared those statistics in a graphic on Instagram. In the comment section, Brown responded, “Y’all corny watch the game.”
Brown believes his progress has shown up in subtler parts of the game. His turnover rate is the lowest of his career. He has been less likely to dribble too far into traffic. He has been more likely to draw a help defender, spin around and find an open teammate. At the other end of the court, he believes his “defensive playmaking is at an all-time high.” He is on pace to set a career high in block rate and is close to his career high in steal rate.
“Most people, how they watch the game, they don’t really watch, so it’s like they evaluate it by statistics,” Brown said. “And that’s one thing. And I feel like as the course of the season goes on, you’ll start to see (my statistics) kind of measure back out, but for the most part, how you play good basketball is most important. Making the right pass. Taking the right shots. Making the right plays. Being in position on both sides of the ball.”
In one of their most important early-season signs of growth, the Celtics — who have a long track record of falling apart once Tatum hits the bench — have outscored opponents by 6.4 points per 100 possessions without Tatum on the court. Brown, who has played 172 of the 239 non-Tatum minutes, often handles more of the playmaking during those stretches. He appreciates the additional playmaking opportunities the coaches have given him.
“I’ve had to earn it,” Brown said. “I’ve had to earn everything. I think they’ve noticed my emphasis on getting guys the ball, and they’ve noticed my turnovers have dropped too, my carelessness sometimes with the ball has gone down. So I’ve had to earn it. Even in Year 8 of your career, it’s great to be able to come to work and you have to earn every privilege that you get.”
The Celtics’ ninth-ranked offense can still short-circuit at times. After they were doomed by a sloppy third quarter during the In-Season Tournament quarterfinals, Brown said they “got caught up in the rat race” when they “should have just settled down a little bit.” Two days later, he said this Boston group still needs to mesh in some ways. Individually, he said he’s trying to figure out the right balance of when to hunt his own offense and when to exercise more patience.
“It’s a challenge,” Brown said. “I think we’re still figuring it out. It’s still early in the season. I’m figuring out where my spots are to be aggressive — to be, like, who I am, that’s in my DNA — but also, the part of my game that’s grown, being able to show that off. Being able to be a great screener. Being able to deliver passes on time and on target. I think that’s very important to being a great teammate and a great playmaker. And those are things that, you know, we’re learning with certain groups, it’s kind of a new team.
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“We’ve got Kristaps, we’ve got Jrue (Holiday) now, we’ve got a lot of guys that are kind of switching up a little bit how we normally play. So we’re 20 games in, and I feel great about where we’re at right now. But where we’re at right now is not the end goal; we’ve gotta do a lot of growing and maturing as the season goes on. So that’s the most important thing. Don’t look at us as a finished product. Right now, how we’re playing, hopefully over the course of the year, we’ll be able to have stretches where we’re playing even better.”
This isn’t last year. It’s not the playoffs.
“It’s a new season,” Brown said. “You learn, you grow and improve. … I’ve just been focused on being a better basketball player. And that’s really it.”
(Top photo: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
