Jaylen Brown's shooting is ahead of schedule, making Celtics' future even brighter

Nuggets big man Mason Plumlee found himself with a tough choice in the final minute of Wednesday’s game against the Celtics as he matched up against Jaylen Brown on a switch.

If he got too close, the athletic wing would blow by him for a basket. If he backed off too far, he would sacrifice a wide-open corner 3-pointer. He had to pick his poison on a night that Brown (26 points on 9-of-12 field goals, 3-of-4 3-pointers) was punishing the Nuggets from inside and out. Plumlee gave him space and Brown drilled the jumper in his face, putting the nail in the coffin for the C’s eventual 124-118 win over Denver.



“I thought we were trying to wind the clock down,” Brown said of the shot afterward. “And then I looked over at Coach, and he looked at me like (shoot it) because I was wide open. So I said all right, let it fly, and it went in.”

That confidence from Brad Stevens in Brown’s shot comes with good reason. Wednesday night was yet another stellar offensive performance from the 21-year-old, his seventh game of the season with 20-plus points and his 21st double-digit scoring effort in 28 games. In a season where Kyrie Irving and Jayson Tatum have rightfully been getting the majority of the headlines for their shooting exploits, Brown’s development as a multifaceted offensive threat has been just as vital to the C’s 24-6 start to the season.

The transformation has been well ahead of schedule for a player many assumed would be an offensive work-in-progress when Danny Ainge drafted him No. 3 overall in 2016. The Cal product surpassed expectations in his rookie year as a serviceable spot-up shooter (34 percent from 3-point range) who showed off flashes of athleticism on the regular. He wasn’t asked to do much within Boston’s offensive scheme and his numbers showed that (just one 20-point performance in 78 games).

Things changed in Year 2 for Brown though, even before Gordon Hayward went down with his season-ending injury. Brown was given the keys to the car at the starting shooting guard spot when Avery Bradley was dealt away in July. The team would need him to shoot well to spread the floor with the starting unit and what he’s accomplished through the first two months has surpassed the team’s expectations.

Brown is shooting a scorching 40.7 percent from 3-point range despite taking 4.4 attempts from downtown per game, the third-highest mark on the team. Unlike Tatum, the second-year wing has been aggressively seeking out his shot from all over the floor, something this team desperately needed once Hayward was sidelined. His midrange game (46 percent from 16-22 feet) has improved dramatically from his rookie year (29 percent), which has put opposing defenses in a bind. Brown’s overall field-goal percentage (47.4 percent) is elite as well. You can’t leave Brown alone in any spot on the floor or else he will punish you for it. That kind of production has allowed Irving to give the ball to both Brown and Tatum without hesitation early in the year.

"We need all of it,” Irving said of their contributions. “It’s the same trust I have to have in them, they have to have in me to be able to deliver those passes. When we’re all of the same kind of mindset, then it works out pretty well for us. And even if the shots weren’t necessarily falling the way we wanted to, it’s just when you give the right energy to the game, it’ll come right back and even out, so I feel like it did that for us tonight.”

Consistency is the biggest challenge for any young player in the NBA and it’s reached a point where the Celtics can afford that one of Tatum or Brown will deliver what they need every night.

“There’s been games where I didn’t knock down shots and we’ve been perfectly fine,” Brown said. “If I want to be productive and I want to help us be a really good team I have to hit shots. But when one of us isn’t going or doesn’t have it going we always seem to pick it up.”

That type of steady production has helped the Celtics rise to 12th overall in offensive efficiency over the past few weeks while maintaining the No. 1 overall defensive spot. It has also allowed them to escape with wins in games without their All-Stars in uniform, like we saw Wednesday night with Horford.

The end result when Hayward gets back will be the creation of a super lineup (Irving/Brown/Hayward/Tatum/Horford) with elite shooting everywhere and shot creation at four different spots. Brown was the biggest question mark of that group from an offensive standpoint going into this season, but he’s silencing the doubters with every outside shot that swishes through the net. In a season full of positive developments for the C’s future, Brown’s offensive progression ranks near the top of the list.