The Celtics were desperate.
Down by three, they had 14 seconds to manufacture a miracle. Malcolm Brogdon swung it to Jayson Tatum. He swung it to Al Horford, but his pass was low and defenders were closing in. With eight now on the clock, Horford had to at least try a shot and hope that even if he missed, a teammate would grab the rebound.
He did miss. Badly.
But Jaylen Brown darted in from the opposite side and soared in for the rebound. As he corralled the ball and went back up, the sound of Patrick Beverley smacking him on the head was clear on the broadcast. It took more than two full seconds for the referee to blow his whistle, but he did it.
Foul. Basket is good. Celtics down one. Brown at the line with a free throw and a chance to tie the game. Again.
“I knew I would get that opportunity again,” Brown said. “But I didn’t think it would be the very next game.”
Kierkegaard wrote that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. In other words, we have to experience things to learn from them, and we have to move on with those lessons in mind.
And so Brown stepped to the free throw line, some 50 hours removed from his failure against the Knicks, and calmly knocked it down. He’d hit four of his next five from the line in overtime, part of an 11 point extra period, to help his Celtics snap a three-game losing streak and beat L.A.
“I'm just happy for him,” Joe Mazzulla said after the win. “The league gives you opportunities to constantly bounce back and he's really got a great mindset, and I'm really happy for him.”
Redemption rarely comes so quickly. In fact, Redemption probably got caught up in traffic on the way to the arena because it clearly wasn’t around as Brown was racking up foul after foul, making mistake after mistake. Luckily for Brown, Horford was.
After a lazy first quarter turnover by Brown that led to a Lonnie Walker layup, Horford popped off the bench and gave Brown an earful.
“He was just telling me to be better,” Brown said. “I casually threw the ball in bounds, unforced, thinking about two, three steps down the line instead of just thinking about what I’m doing right now … casual turnover and Al got on me, rightfully so.”
Instead of that turning into a tense moment between teammates, Brown took the message to heart. Later, after Brown made a good play, Horford was right there to pat him on the chest and give him some encouragement.
“It’s great. Al, it’s never … belittling. Al, he’s coming from the right space,” Brown said. “When he’s talking, it’s all toward winning. Al is only geared towards winning. Anytime he does bring up or say something, you know that’s the angle he’s coming from. Not from a place of malice or place of disbelief or a place of anger or whatever, frustration. It’s all towards winning. When Al speaks, you listen.”
Brown can be his own biggest enemy, which he has admitted in the past. If he didn’t play for the Celtics, he could be part of the Geto Boys considering how often his mind plays tricks on him. But when he stays in the moment, he can be extraordinary.
“Big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games,” Jayson Tatum said. After Brown’s two missed free throws cost Boston against New York, Tatum said he would, if he was allowed, bet money on Brown coming through the next time he had the chance. He didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, either.
"I was obviously extremely happy, for one, that he got that opportunity again,” he said. “A lot of times, you only get one chance at certain things. We played some good games. For it to be the next game, it was kind of, like, ironic and funny in a sense. I had no doubt in my mind he was to make it. I was just happy he got that opportunity - not for anybody else, but just to redeem himself. So I was happy he got that chance."
Honestly, if I was watching a TV show and I saw a guy get his shot at redemption the very next game, I’d scoff and call it unrealistic. I would have been yelling at the TV right as the camera cut to Brown darting in for that offensive rebound.
And if we’re really being real with each other, Brown didn’t need that redemption in the first place. If he never got another free throw attempt to tie a game, we wouldn’t go back over everything on his retirement day and say “oh hey wait a minute, he never atoned for those misses against New York in January of 2023!” That's not how things work.
In reality, something would have come along this season to make us forget about those free throws … or at least push them deeper into our memories. The fact that this opportunity came this quickly is mostly a stroke of luck. It’s atonement on demand that might as well have been dispensed by Cardinal Ignatius Glick.
But the cosmos portioned out this karma, and I’m not one to question the cosmos. It gave Brown this moment, so he gets to have it.
“Don’t let one game define you, don’t let one moment define you,” he said. “Life is about how you respond, so I look at it as a challenge. In those moments, you learn to appreciate those moments because they spark something in you to be more focused, more locked in and you have to trust and believe in yourself even more. So I’m just happy we got the win, that’s it.