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”Fall down seven times, get up eight.” In his eigth playoff run, Jaylen Brown has never shined brighter. The Boston Celtics are on the brink of winning their 18th banner, a brilliant accomplishment, featuring a journey marked with failures and misfortune, all of which the Celtics star has been around for.
By Spencer Galloway | June 14th, 2024
Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/Boston Globe
"With the 3rd overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics select Jaylen Brown…", called out Adam Silver. Met with mixed responses from the crowd, I can remember exactly where I was standing when his name was called and how I felt at that moment. I was confused by the choice and didn't know too much about the player who was mostly advertised as a freak athlete lacking in many skill areas. Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram predictably went off the board with picks one and two and there just weren't many home runs available at pick number three, or so we thought. I don't believe Boston thought so either, as they had heavily shopped this pick leading up to the draft.
They were already a playoff team, albeit under equipped to really find late-round success, why try and develop a 19-year-old kid in the midst of what most teams would deem successful seasons? These lottery picks were an unexpected gift from Brooklyn after all, there was no real need to continue rebuilding. Boston couldn't find a trade partner for this pick, at least not one willing to send back what Danny Ainge would have justified as a worthwhile return in talent. The Celtics are now rejoicing that they couldn't.
Boston stands tall today, up 3-0 in the NBA Finals, one win away from a very elusive 18th championship. Now with six trips to the conference finals since 2017, the Celtics have been viewed largely as a failure who couldn't get the job done, despite knocking at the door so many times. This was a group of overachievers in the beginning, punching above their weight when they took on LeBron and the Cavs in 2017 and 2018. Forcing a game seven in 2018 might have been the worst thing they could have done, as far as narratives go, because they were then viewed as a team ready to win it all, when they still had a lot of scars to earn before that was ever possible. Scars they have indeed earned, every season of the Jays' young careers ending in heartbreak, despite cumulative playoff excellence for both them and the Celtics over this eight-year run.
Entering this season, Jaylen Brown was going to be put to task. His career was at a major inflection point after putting pen to paper on the richest contract in NBA history, bringing many to call his worthiness of such a lucrative deal into question. Brown signed said deal on the heels of a disappointing game seven against the Miami Heat, trying to do what no team in NBA history has done, come back from down 3-0 in a playoff series. After Jayson Tatum went down with an ankle sprain to start the game, all eyes looked to the Celtics second-star to come up huge in a moment when the C's needed him most. Brown turned in a grossly inefficient 19 points on 8 for 23 from the field, with 8 turnovers, as Boston watched Miami celebrate punching their ticket to return to the NBA Finals. The second such time they had seen this movie play out, as an even younger version of this group witnessed defeat at the hands of the Heat in 2020.
Brown entered the offseason as the most questioned star in the NBA, as seemingly everyone, many Celtics fans included, wondered whether or not it would ultimately be worth giving the full supermax extension to someone who in his first seven seasons, had yet to make good on the promise of a championship for the city of Boston. The Celtics, with little to no hesitation paid the price it takes to have a top 15 player on your roster in today's NBA. "We want Jaylen to be here for a long, long time, and we’ve made that clear", said Brad Stevens after the extension last summer.
All signs are pointing to that statement becoming a reality, as it feels impossible to imagine a world in which the Celtics take the floor without their longest-tenured, two-way star. His growth this season is a testament to who he is not only as a player, but as a person as well. Many stars who came before him who have cashed in big on their talents cease to try and get better, and often have already played their best ball. Not Jaylen Brown, as he has made leaps and bounds of progress in his overall game, displaying all the tools he's been sharpening since he first stepped onto the parquet.
Once an indecisive playmaker, his game plagued by costly turnovers now is a sound and confident decision-maker. From his pass to Derrick White to win the conference finals, to finding Xavier Tillman all alone in the right corner of game three of the Finals, to the countless sound executions in transition, all playoffs long he's made the right decisions. Already a plus-defender entering this season, Brown had set the bar even higher for himself on that side of the floor. Back in December Brown said "I made a commitment before the season. I wanted to be First Team [All-Defense] and I feel like I've been living up to that." Since then, he has challenged himself and has been up to task in often guarding the opposing team's best player all playoffs long.
Following the departure of once Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart last offseason, Jaylen has taken on the challenge of being the defensive leader for this group. Having a star of Brown’s magnitude on offense also give the level of defensive effort and energy night to night is a luxury not many teams have. The Celtics just so happen to have two of them, the other of course being Jayson Tatum.
In these playoffs Jaylen Brown has elevated round after round, leading all the way into these NBA Finals in which he’s been nothing short of excellent. Jason Kidd may have been trying to create friction between the Celtics two stars when he went out of his way to say that Jaylen Brown was the Celtics best player, yet Jaylen has looked nothing short of just that at many points during this run. There are nights when he does have to be the Celtics best player, and he seldom fails to rise to the occasion. That is ultimately the beauty of having two stars who have played together for so long. Not only do they feed off one another’s energy but they can each elevate their play when the other just might not have it.
Then you have nights like game three, in which they each exploded for 30+ points, combining for 61. After all the discussion around the opposing duo in Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, the Jays have embraced being the underdog in the eyes of so many. Commonly referred to as “Fire and Ice” by fans, they have seemingly mastered how to best work together.
“I love you bro, we right there” Brown said to Tatum after the two found each other promptly after winning game three. With one win to go, this is the closest the Celtics have been to achieving the ultimate goal since this iteration of the Celtics was dreamt up inside the creative basketball mind of then GM Danny Ainge. Eight playoff trips, six conference finals, and now two Finals appearances in, and it all started on draft night in 2016.
"With the 3rd overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics select Jaylen Brown…”
The rest is history.
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