Brown dialed in
Long distance prowess adds to repertoire
It’s not that Jaylen Brown couldn’t miss last night. It’s just, except for once, he didn’t.
Six times he fired away from beyond the 3-point arc, and five times he found the strings. There was also a 20-foot pull-up and a rather thunderous driving dunk.
When Brown left late in the third quarter with a banged-up knee that he says is not serious, the 6-foot-7 wing had produced 22 points in 25 minutes. And while he was available to return, he and most of the Celtics regulars took the last period of the 113-86 thrashing of the Sacramento Kings off.
“Just working on it,” Brown said of his long-distance prowess. “Just not really thinking about it. Just letting it fly. My teammates found me, and Kyrie (Irving) did a good job of hitting me and hitting me in rhythm, and some of them just happened to go in tonight.”
Just eight games into the season, the numbers suggest that, for Brown, home is where the heat is. He’s made 28 of his 46 shots at the Garden (60.9 percent), including 11-of-18 (61.1 percent) on treys.
Away from the parquet, however, he’s made 18-of53 (34 percent) and 5-of-21 (23.8), respectively.
“It happens,” said Brown, who made 3-of-17 shots on the recent two-game swing to Milwaukee and Miami. “That’s the NBA. You know, you play tough games. Shots don’t fall, but you’ve got to keep your confidence and let them fly just as if they just went in. So that’s the same thing all our guys tell me and the same thing I tell all my guys. Keep your confidence and have a short-term memory. The next game is different.”
There is reason to believe he is, at the moment, a victim of small sample size. Last season he actually shot better on the road, 48.8 percent to 42.3 percent. And the spread on 3-pointers was 40.7 to 28.9.
“I thought he had moments last year both at home and on the road,” said coach Brad Stevens. “Those are things that work themselves out over time. You focus on the next task. We’ve talked about this before. I don’t talk a lot about home and road. We’ve got a game to play, and we’ve got to focus on what we need to do to win that possession.”
Brown won a lot of possessions against the Kings. And he did it efficiently.
“You know what was interesting?” said Stevens. “He only took eight shots, but obviously 22 points on eight shots is great. I thought that he took all the right ones. He didn’t force anything. I thought he was really, really active defensively when he was in there, and I thought that obviously when he gets going out on the open floor on cuts, when he gets an angle at the rim, he’s really good. So I thought he played really well and, you know, that’s a good thing. We believe in his shooting, that’s for sure.”
The bottom line is that, while Brown isn’t going to hit 5-of-6 treys every night, if he can provide a reasonably consistent threat from the distance, the NBA-ready defense he displayed when he walked onto the floor as a rookie does more than cushion the blow from the loss of Avery Bradley.
And it’s clear that the opportunities will be there for Brown. As long as Irving is drawing a crowd with his twisting forays to the hoop, there will be space to set himself and launch.
“Absolutely,” Brown said. “Kyrie and (Al) Horford are going to draw so much attention, especially Kyrie, so, I mean, I’m just licking my chops every time they double Kyrie or whatever. I’m just trying to stay ready as possible and try to take the pressure off them. They’ve got to guard me and Jayson (Tatum) and (Marcus) Smart and Terry (Rozier), too.”
Said Irving: “As long as we’re all doing our job and make sure we’re playing with a high pace, playing with a high energy, we all put ourselves in a great position screening for one another and making sure that we’re making unselfish plays. The little things matter. Like coach Brad said, those little things aren’t really called little things anymore in the grand scheme of things.”
And in that large scheme, Irving doesn’t believe Brown’s value will hinge on his jumper.
Asked whether he was one of the people telling the 21-year-old to keep his head up after the frustrating nights against the Bucks and Heat, Kyrie said, “Nuhuh, it’s all Jaylen, man. It’s all Jaylen. He’s got the will of a great player, just consistently putting the work in, just understanding that his impact could be felt whether he’s shooting well or not.
“We need his energy out there, and as a second-year player, he’s an experienced guy in this group, and we need him to consistently be that. He knows what he brings to this team, so whether he’s shooting well or not, we just want him to have that same mindset that he can still make an impact on the game.”
All the theories — the road and impact other than shooting — will be heavily tested tomorrow night in Oklahoma City. If Brown succeeds again there, we’ll still be dealing with relatively little evidence for 2017-18. But you can be certain some NBA eyebrows will be raised.