Resilient four-time All-Star Boston Celtics small forward Jaylen Brown is gamely playing through a lingering right knee posterior impingement that he expects will cause him pain throughout the rest of the regular season and this spring's impending playoffs.
In a dominant 123-103 blowout victory on Friday night against the Phoenix Suns, Boston's 57th of the season, Brown scored an impressive 31 points on 10-of-16 shooting from the floor (3-of-4 from deep) and 8-of-9 shooting from the foul line, while grabbing five rebounds and dishing out three assists.
During the Suns game, Brown surpassed former Celtics All-Star forward Antoine Walker to become Bostons' 14th-leading scorer when he notched his 11,387th career regular season point. When the dust in that game had settled, Brown finished with 11,415 career points.
According to Khari A. Thompson of Boston.com, Brown revealed that he's been studying footage of a certain former legendary Celtics wing in an effort to figure out how to best maximize his play.
“It’s funny because he was at the game today," Brown said. "Before the game, I was watching some Paul Pierce footage,” Brown said. “Getting to your spots, you know, playing at a certain pace. Today I felt like I didn’t have my normal burst but I was still able to be effective, so I think that’s good."
Pierce was gifted with a special piece of hardware from Boston while in attendance at the bout.
Ironically, the Celtics' draft rights to Brown (plus first-round picks in 2014 and 2018) were flipped to Boston as part of the compensation the team got in its deal to offload Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry to the Brooklyn Nets in 2013.
“But, as we continue to move forward, I’m hoping to feel better and better," Brown cautioned about his health. "But, there’s no guarantee that rest or anything like that will make this thing better so I’m kind of figuring it out and going through it and getting ready for the playoffs.”
As Thompson notes, Brown needs to appear in four of the Celtics' final five regular season bouts to qualify for All-NBA and All-Defensive Team honors this season.
“I haven’t felt my best over the last couple of days, the last couple of weeks,” Brown acknowledged. “But you’ve kind of got to just roll with the punches I guess. It is what it is. It sucks.
The reigning Finals MVP's head coach, Joe Mazzulla, explained about how he's going to handle Brown's health going forward.
“I have a responsibility to make the game easy for him regardless of what the situation is,” Mazzulla said. “To me, it’s always about trust. There’s no one that understands his body, there’s no one that prepares mentally, physically the way that he does. He’s constantly taking in information on the environment and what he needs to do.”
Across 61 available contests so far this season, the 6-foot-6 Cal product has been averaging 22.6 points while slashing .464/.324/.763, 5.9 rebounds, 4.6 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.2 steals a night.
