Jaylen Brown will miss time with concussion but avoids structural injury to neck and back

WALTHAM -- Jaylen Brown will miss Sunday's game against the Pacers after suffering a concussion on Thursday night, but the Celtics and the shooting guard are counting their blessings after the 21-year-old avoided additional injuries in the wake of his hard fall in Minnesota.

"He went through a series of tests yesterday that were more detailed even than the ones he went through in Minnesota," Brad Stevens said after practice Saturday. "Everything came back negative so he's doing better. He's sore and he has entered the concussion protocol. As far as structurally -- neck, back, shoulders -- he's going to be fine. He will be out, obviously, tomorrow. I guess at some point, he becomes day-to-day but I don't see that happening anytime in the next couple days or week even."

Brown will need to pass a series of checkpoints in the NBA concussion protocol in order to be cleared to return to the floor, but Stevens knows the situation could have been much worse.

"I don't want to minimize (the concussion). A concussion is something that we have to make sure that he comes back 110 percent and goes through the whole protocol symptom-free, all that stuff," Stevens said. "It could have been a number of things with that fall, but I think, again, he's fortunate and we're fortunate that it's not. He'll go through the protocol and we won't bring him back until its right. ... He's going full speed, he dunks with two hands and his fingers just slip. That's it. He's lucky."

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The Celtics only have three games in the next week (vs. Indiana, vs. Washington, at Orlando), which should help minimize the number of contests Brown is sidelined for. Stevens wouldn't commit to a replacement starter at shooting guard for those contests, as he listed up to five candidates for the spot.

"Kyrie, Terry, Marcus are going to play their minutes they always play," Stevens acknowledged, "Plus, obviously, those guys will be impacted by (Brown's absence). More opportunity for Semi, Nader and Shane. I think that we'll go game-to-game and minute-to-minute like we have all year and next man step up."

Stevens elected to keep the thriving bench unit together on Monday night in Chicago with Kyrie Irving sidelined but he'll have a tougher time getting away with that this week. The Pacers and Wizards have a pair of elite shooting guards (Victor Oladipo, Bradley Beal) to match up with, so inserting an undersized guard like Larkin or a natural small forward like Nader or Ojeleye would pose a stiff challenge for the starting unit.

"It's a little bit different," Stevens admitted. "We'll look at Shane, Smart, Terry, Semi, Nader, any of those guys could start. You're not only worried about the first five minutes of each half. It's important, it's really important, but at the end of the day, we'll weigh starting Smart or Terry or keeping our bench unit together."

The size of Oladipo and Beal (both 6-foot-4 and above) make Smart a likely candidate to get the nod for matchup purposes. Larkin and Ojeleye are good bets to enter the rotation as well for their defensive value, as was evidenced on Thursday night when Ojeleye played big minutes in the fourth quarter once Brown went down.