The Celtics are no strangers to crazy endings, so trying to defend a five-point lead with :45 to go and Minnesota inbounding it under their own basket was not a comfortable position to be in at all. So when Karl-Anthony Towns’ fallaway fell short, the most important thing in the world for Boston was to finish off the defensive play.
“We literally talked about it … we needed to get a stop and we needed to come up with the rebound,” Al Horford told Boston Sports Journal after the game.
So when Jaylen Brown held off Anthony Edwards, tipped the ball to himself and hugged it cleanly to secure the rebound, Horford knew that was exactly what they’d talked about.
“We preach about making winning plays, and that's a winning play, and those are the things we need to do to be at that next level,” Horford told BSJ. “We’re close. But that mindset, to Jaylen’s credit, he continues to grow, he continues to understand, and figure it out. But those are those intangible plays that people look at it, they don’t mean much, but they're a big deal.”
Brown came away with 11 rebounds, all while shutting down one of the league’s brightest young superstars in Anthony Edwards, which might be more impressive than his 35 points and perfect 13 free throw night. While Jayson Tatum took the scoring baton from Brown and went into full takeover mode, Brown was leading the way on the other end of the floor.
“JB was just being JB,” Jrue Holiday said after the game. “Especially the last few games, he's been going crazy defensively and guarding the best guard on the defensive end. Elite two-way player, to be able to do what he does on offense and go ahead and stop guys on the defensive end."
Brown grabbed five of Boston’s seven rebounds in the overtime. The first was a tip to prevent Nickeil Alexander-Walker from getting an offensive rebound. He ripped away a rebound on the baseline that seemed destined for Edwards’ hands. His final one was of an airball he forced.
“Greatness looks different on different days,” Joe Mazzulla said, getting to use one of his go-to phrases. “You can still have a tremendous game even if you're not scoring, if the ball’s not going in. It's not just him, that's everybody. It's all of us being defined by winning plays, great plays, and I thought tonight his defense was elite. His in-traffic rebounds were elite, and I thought he did a great job with the free-throw line.”
It’s not like Brown is a total stranger to windexing misses. This is the 27th time in his career he’s grabbed 11 or more rebounds. And this is the sixth time he’s done it while scoring at least 35 points, tying him with Kevin McHale and Robert Parish for the eighth-most such games in team history. When he needs to get boards, he can get them.
“We was getting beat up on the glass kind of all game,” he said. “I think they were out-rebounding us up until the fourth quarter. It's just a mindset of a decision like we're gonna win this game, you know, we can't give up second-chance points and stuff like that. I just tried to throw my body around and see what happens.”
This probably won’t be the last time he pitches in on that end. Boston loves to get up and down the floor, something Brown has pushed for as well, which means he’s going to occasionally find himself in spots where his energy and effort will be spent doing the dirty work.
“We're asking for him now to be a playmaker and get others involved, and then on the defensive end, we need him with his size and with his strength,” Horford told BSJ. “We need him to be able to get those rebounds and because a lot of the times he gets cross-matched, he has to box out a bigger guy or something, so that's all part of his growth.
“In the first half, Naz Reid got a tip in over him and we talked about it a little bit in here (at halftime). Second half, he had one against Naz Reid and boxed him out and he's able to get the rebound too. So it shows Jaylen wants to be coached, he wants to be better, he wants to grow.”
The story of this win over the Timberwolves can easily be told in a gushing essay about Tatum’s takeover ability and how he finds a different gear in January. The man scored 20 points in nine minutes and flipped a nine-point deficit into a seven-point lead seemingly by himself.
But it’s the little things in between all those pretty points that make this W one of the more satisfying wins in a pretty satisfying first half of the season. Guards grabbing offensive rebounds, bigs leading fast breaks, guys shaking off frustrating nights to keep their poise and make big plays …
… and an All-NBA player who just signed the richest contract in league history taking on a monster defensive challenge and acing it.
This is why this team can mostly suck (Mazzulla’s words, not mine) and still come away with a win over an elite opponent. They aren’t worried about what is supposed to happen. They're just giving the game what it needs, and no one is above doing the difficult dirty work to make it happen.
“Everybody being open-minded and willing to check off all the boxes, I think that’s special,” Tatum said. “From top to bottom everybody is willing to do that. So I think it’s special that we have a group like that.”