Kyrie Irving posted just the second triple-double of his career on Thursday night, yet the first name Brad Stevens credited for Boston's win in his postgame press conference was not the All-Star point guard.
“I thought after the six-minute mark of that (third) quarter we were – we were really dialed in,” Stevens said after the 126-120 victory over the Kings. “They forced us to play big some; I thought our double bigs played well together and I thought, you know, obviously, the lift that Jaylen (Brown) gave us scoring the ball off the bench and we got a lot of good performances in those last 16 minutes.”
Brown had 22 points off the bench in the win, continuing a trend for a couple of months now, which puts him as the most consistent weapon off the Celtics bench and perhaps a top-four player on the team as a whole. The third-year guard has found his confidence as a scorer again, shaking off a dismal start to the year to jump up fourth on the team in scoring (13.0 ppg) after Thursday’s victory.
The reasons for the bounceback are numerous: His shot selection has improved, his defense is far more consistent and despite being on the receiving end of blowups from the likes of Marcus Smart and Marcus Morris here and there after a bad decision or defensive miscue, the 22-year-old has maintained his composure most nights. No one on this team gets the kind of public scrutiny that Brown does from his teammates while he’s on the court and he’s taken the heat in stride. It’s a credit to his maturity that he has managed to overcome this.
Still, in the midst of his midseason resurgence, there has been one key element to his game that has remained missing in action prior to March: A reliable 3-point shot. The athletic wing was a net positive in spite of his outside shooting in February, averaging 12.6 points per game despite knocking down just 28 percent of his 3s. He entered Thursday’s game shooting just 31 percent on the year.
Perimeter accuracy for Brown was the main knock on his game coming out of Cal as a freshman, a year in which he hit just 29.4 percent from downtown. He surprised during his rookie season with a respectable 34 percent clip from 3-point range and followed that up with a stellar sophomore campaign with elite marksmanship (39.5 percent) from distance. That type of shooting growth combined with Brown’s athleticism made him a prospect that the Celtics wouldn’t even consider moving for the likes of Kawhi Leonard last summer.
Boston remains an above-average 3-point shooting team (36.5 percent on the year) but nearly the entire roster has gone into a deep slump from the perimeter since the All-Star Break. Boston is shooting just 32 percent from beyond the arc since returning from the long layoff with horrific numbers from the likes of Morris (26 percent) Al Horford (25 percent) and Jayson Tatum (25 percent) weighing down the Celtics during several games. Luckily for Stevens, Brown has appeared to finally find some consistency with his own stroke and that was showcased at the perfect time on Thursday night.
Brown drilled three corner 3s in the midst of a 16-2 Celtics run to close out the third quarter, an outburst which ended up being the game-deciding run for Boston (they held onto the lead for final 12 minutes of the game). Brown finished with 22 points off of Boston’s bench but it was these 3s that proved to be critical on a night where no one else on the roster could hit much of anything from beyond the arc (the rest of the roster shot 6 of 24 from 3)
Jaylen Brown knocked down three consecutive 3-pointers to end the third quarter and earned tonight's @JetBlue Play of the Game honors! pic.twitter.com/sXLmvJzNFx
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) March 15, 2019
