Brown’s knee not a worry headed into All-Star game
Preparing to play in first All-Star game Sunday
Though Jaylen Brown’s left knee tendinitis has been the source of recent concern for the Celtics, there doesn’t appear to be much anxiety about the young star playing in his first
NBA All-Star game in his hometown of Atlanta on Sunday.
“He feels really good. Feels really good. That’s encouraging,” Brad Stevens said before Thursday’s game against Toronto, which closed out the first half of the season.
That’s not to say that Brown
will escape the microscope of the Celtics training staff. Brown and fellow-all-star Jayson Tatum have both played heavy minutes over the first half, and are likely to receive load management consideration over the next two months prior to the playoffs.
“Again, this is one of those things that’s going to be probably a very rare occasional flareup but has to be managed,” said Stevens. “You saw that flare up this week, this weekend, and as you see across the league, I think a lot of people have
missed games in this past week.
“I think that’s largely due to the density of the last month, right?” said the Celtics coach. “As far as going into the weekend, there’s no big concern with either (Brown or Tatum). I think at the end of the day, one game in the middle of a week will be nothing compared to what they’ve been through, certainly over the bubble plus the short offseason plus ramping up and then playing the dense schedule that we’ve played.”
Avoiding a letdown
It’s been a particularly rough week for the Raptors, who had two games this week postponed due to COVID concerns, and on Thursday night faced the Celtics without Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Fred VanVleet, Malachi Flynn and Patrick McCaw, not to mention coach Nick Nurse and some of his staff.
“I think they were decimated by injuries last year on the back-to-back and they came in here and killed us,” said Stevens. “So if there’s any need for extra talk about that, any team with Kyle Lowry and the culture and the way that those guys play and the aggressiveness with which they play, our guys know that we’re going to have to play well to win.
“I think part of being good in this league is being able to move on from what happened, whether it was bad or good,” he said. “I think that you can feel a lot different about yourself week to week depending on how things are going but that can change pretty quickly. I haven’t focused a ton on it, I’ve mentioned it. But, yeah, our focus all week has been be together, and play good basketball. And we’ve done that, played good basketball for portions of games. We haven’t done it for 48 minutes yet. So I’m hopeful that we can get a
little closer to that.”
‘Sense of urgency’
According to those Celtics who have spoken on the subject, recent struggles only brought the team closer together.
Semi Ojeleye has certainly noticed a difference.
“I think over the last three games we’ve had a greater sense of urgency,” he said. “We know what’s at stake and that you can get behind the eightball, especially in a shortened season, and it can be tough to get to where we want to be before the postseason starts. So for us our communication has increased, our sense of urgency, and our togetherness. That’s what we need to make sure that the ball goes in, our defense is back and the rest takes care of itself.”