Jaylen Brown spoke to Fadeaway World after the Boston Celtics 130-104 preseason win over the Denver Nuggets at the 2024 NBA Abu Dhabi Games, sharing fantastic insight into how he reads the rhythm of his opponents to be as effective a defender as possible.
"You gotta do your research, be a student of the game, and watch a lot of basketball. Watch certain guys, and their patterns, watch how they move, and you get information from that. Everyone's individual, everyone's different, but the more you study, do your research, the more you start to notice these things."
Brown recently appeared on the viral YouTube channel 'First We Feast' on their show 'Hot Ones with Sean Evans.' During the appearance, Evans asked Brown about guarding Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving in the NBA Finals, where Jaylen spoke about the similarities between basketball and music, elaborating on the rhythm the two players play with.
“There's a rhythm and a cadence to how people play. Certain guys play to a certain beat, a certain cadence, a certain style. If you know their style, you can time what they're going to do next because you know their rhythm and the BPM they play at."
"Luka (Doncic) has a unique rhythm. It’s almost so slow that it’s hard to time. Kyrie has a unique rhythm as well, very one-of-one. His moves and cadences are very hard to time. He's got a lot of counters, he can pivot off both feet, he can shoot with both hands, and he can drive in both directions, which makes his rhythm a lot harder to track.
"Some guys only go right, some guys only go left, and some guys have two moves that they go to. So, I look at basketball as poetry in motion, which is music. Everybody is playing their own song. Everybody samples from different artists. If you want to stop them you gotta study their rhythm, you gotta learn when their beat is about to drop.”
Being able to read the game like this for Jaylen Brown is probably why he's considered one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA right now. I recently asked fans on social media who they consider to be the best 'Luka Stopper' in the NBA, with Brown being one of the most commonly brought-up names.
His ability to withstand Luka's herky-jerky movement and read where he was going was crucial for the Celtics in the Finals, especially with how the Celtics' team defense ensured no players were left open for Doncic to pass to.
Luka averaged 29.2 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 5.6 assists over the series, still being able to score at will and efficiently despite the Brown matchup, but Brown made it impossible for him to get comfortable shooting threes while mostly guarding him one-on-one, which isn't something most teams feel comfortable doing with Doncic.
Brown held his own and has a Finals MVP trophy at home to look at as a result.
