Jaylen Brown’s realization came a year later than his superstar running mate. The Celtics were in the midst of what ended as a failed comeback when Jayson Tatum sprained his ankle in Game 7 of the conference finals last year. It was time for Brown to step up, but he responded with eight turnovers.
“All of the moments where we came up short, we felt like we let the city down, let ourselves down, all of that compiled is how we get to this moment,” Brown said. “And it makes it feel even that much better that we had to go through all the journey, the heartbreak, the embarrassment, the loss, to get to the mountaintop.”
Just like Tatum a year earlier, Brown took that anger into the offseason and used it as fuel to refine his game.
“This summer, he was obsessed. He was a madman,” said Malcolm Durr, Brown’s cousin and confidant. “It was that extra step of discipline and it made all the difference. He was really locked in and was like. ‘I was right there. I didn’t get the job done. It won’t happen again.’ And he did it.”
Brown often said he doesn’t care about the outside noise. But that is in part because he doesn’t hide from his faults.
He knew he was driving into the paint with blinders on. He could feel the ball slipping out of his left hand when he tried a dribble move in tight space. He had to become composed in every situation, just as Tatum had done.
As the season went on, Brown’s growth as a playmaker and defender became evident. The apparent weaknesses that marred his Game 7 embarrassment faded. The differences between his role and Tatum’s started to meld as Brown could handle more game management responsibility.
Read my story on the evolution of Brown and his “partner in crime” Jayson Tatum.
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