Preseason games, especially the first one, are blips in time. It’s almost impossible to glean anything meaningful from a game like this. One game doesn’t give you patterns. It doesn’t account for aberrations. It’s Exhibit A in what will be a pile of evidence.
Sometimes, though, you can tell something right away.
“Malcolm (Brogdon) is really good at basketball,” Jaylen Brown said after the team’s 41 point preseason win over Charlotte. “I think that’s an obvious one. Makes the right plays, he’s just a threat out there at all times. And he’s definitely just going to make us better overall.”
Brogdon’s stat line doesn’t jump off the page. 11 points, 9 assists, 5 rebounds is nice, but the numbers he piled aren’t what really stands out about his performance. The real impact Brogdon is making will be the weight lifted off the shoulders of his teammates.
“Makes it easier for me, because he’s a threat out there,” Brown said. “He’s able to score the ball, he’s able to get down to his right hand, he’s able to make the right read, so you gotta definitely respect him each and every night, and that’s just going to make it harder for teams to cover because you have to pick and choose who you want to stop. So Malcolm, I can foresee him being a great addition to our team.”
Brogdon is able to take the pressure off his teammates because there isn’t as much pressure on him. Instead of being the focal point of the opponent’s defensive gameplan, he gets to help punish teams for focusing so much on Brown and Jayson Tatum.
“There’s definitely a freedom in my mind, not having to be the guy that’s scoring all the points,” Brogdon said. “I don’t have the best defender on me when I’m in the game most of the time now playing on this team, so it really opens me up to get downhill to create for everybody. I think that’s what we saw tonight.”
Brogdon broke down the Hornets defense and helped create 23 points via his assists. In the second quarter, he grabbed a rebound, drove it right down the middle of the floor, and when Charlotte closed in on him, he whipped a pass to Grant Williams for an open corner 3-pointer. On an out of bounds play, the threat of Brogdon caused a defensive mistake that left Sam Hauser wide open for an easy 3. When he was in the game with the starters, the gravity of his shooting threat pulled open lanes that didn’t exist in the past.
There are going to be challenges along the way, but Brogdon looked pretty comfortable fitting in with his teammates.
"It's easy,” Brogdon said. “There are so many versatile players who do a lot of really good things at a high level on the floor. But the key is not to worry about that but to do what you do best. I think that's going to be my strength this year is the confidence in my game and being able to do a lot of things well."
Breaking down a defense is like trying to break a wire hanger by bending it over and over and over again. The more times you bend it, the closer you are to snapping it. What Brogdon gives Boston is another guy to bend the hanger.
Brogdon didn’t look like the new guy in his first game, which might be the best part of his performance. It was his first live game with his new teammates, but he never seemed to be in the wrong spot. He’s still learning the terminology, but he never seemed to have trouble communicating. For a team looking for stability in the face of a chaotic beginning to their season, Brogdon showed himself to be the steady hand they needed.
“He’s more than capable of being a go-to player in this league,” Brown said. “So for him, being able to come in and run things and also get himself going as you saw tonight, he had a well-balanced game.”
Balance might be the best word to describe Brogdon. He’s capable of doing the things the team needs to keep everything in balance. If they're not scoring enough, he can hit shots. If they're not passing enough, he can drop dimes.
“It felt good,” Brogdon said. “This is a team full of unselfish guys that clearly have an objective to just win. We want to win it all this year, so we’re trying to build for that. We’re not really concerned about statistics and all that. We know JT and JB are going to lead us every night on the offensive end. It’s up to the rest of us to play our roles and to support them but to also play to the best of our abilities every night.”
