Friday night was a fiasco by the Boston Celtics, but more specifically by Jaylen Brown.
After dropping Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Miami HeatBoston has a chance to fight back. Instead, they collapsed under the bright lights, and Brown led the crash.
“Yeah, I mean, I think we got some pretty cool looks,” Brown said. “I, personally, thought I had some pretty cool looks that weren’t entered.”
The Browns finished with 16 points but took the most shots on the team. He shot 7-of-23 from the field and 1-of-7 from behind the three-point line, taking three more shots than Jason Tatum but finishing with less than half his score.
Outside a small stretch in the third quarter, the Browns were tough from start to finish. He was 24 on the night, and given how active he was on offense, he was the worst player on the floor for Boston. Not to mention his defensive lapses.
After a relatively tough Game 1 in which his strong efficiency did not reflect his poor decision-making, the Browns had some of the worst tunnel vision of his career in Game 2.
In the first quarter, Tatum shot 4 of 6, but the Browns led the team in shots, going 1-for-7. As the game wore on, so did the trend. The only quarter that Tatum-Brown edged was in the third quarter when both were effective, and the Celtics took control.
The Heat did a great job getting the ball out of Tatum’s hands, but on most occasions, Brown simply took the shot-creating duties upon himself. Brown let them take advantage of his struggles, calling his number over and over again.
Miami’s defensive coverage proved successful because it forced Tatum to play second fiddle and prevented the Browns from being effective.
“I think they only mix when they go to the guys, and when they go to the zone,” Brown said. “They were trying to guard me with guys who are clear that you’re going to attack, but they use the rest of the guys to kind of help and pressure, making it hard to get to the basket, and things like that.”
There was a stretch in the fourth quarter as Brown traveled and flipped it, then took a contested quick jump from the middle range, proceeded to throw another contested look after catching a rebound, and capped it all by allowing Duncan Robinson to slip in from behind him for an open layup.
It was an absolutely disastrous game for the 26-year-old star, who put together the best regular season of his career. On a night when the Celtics were desperate for someone to co-star alongside Tatum, the Browns fell for it.
But that doesn’t mean he’s throwing in the towel.
“I just have to go out and fight,” Brown said. “I think both of those games, they were able to edge, but who’s to say we can’t come out on top in the next two games? We just have to get ready to play basketball. We can’t lose our faith. It’s the first of four. You should make a better story.”