If Jaylen Brown needs to find a new market for his personal sneaker brand, he can try partnering with the Arthur Murray schools and sell them as dancing shoes.
The way Brown has ripped through opponents this season has been beyond impressive. He has not only joined the rare club of mid-range masters allowed to operate, without question, in typically the least-efficient area of the floor, he has done it with flair.
Brown is now shooting 55% on step-back jumpers, a 24% improvement from last season. In fact, he has lived in the 30-something percent range for a few years. You have to go back to 2021, when he shot 49% on those shots, taking 45 the entire season.
He’s taken 49 already this year.
Twinkle-toes Brown is making defenders look foolish, reaching yet another offensive level at 29 years old. As most players reach their peaks, Brown is finding new ways to improve his overall game. It’s rare. It’s impressive.
And it’s exhausting.
Brown is carrying an incredible scoring load for the Celtics. At this moment, Brown is the NBA’s eighth-leading scorer at 28.8 points per game and fourth in total points. His usage rate (an estimate of team plays a player uses on the floor) is 35.4%, third in the league behind Luka Dončić and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Celtics currently have the league’s fifth-best offensive rating, and Brown is responsible for most of that. The man needs some help.
Unfortunately for him, the Celtics don’t have much to offer. Derrick White is supposed to be that guy for Boston, and Payton Pritchard is supposed to help that along, but neither of them have been able to consistently find the kind of rhythm they need to make that happen.
White and Pritchard combine to take 16 3-pointers per game, but they are leaving Minnesota, combining to shoot 32% on the season. White’s number is particularly problematic because he hasn’t been able to follow up his good shooting nights with a string of more. He forgot to pack the touch he showed in the second half of the win over Detroit, going 2-8 against the Timberwolves. Pritchard had one hot stretch, but nothing about his shooting could be called “consistent.”
Without them, the Celtics are relying on a ragtag bunch of guys capable of getting hot but, outside of Sam Hauser, no one that can be counted on as a go-to. And Hauser hasn’t exactly been flammable yet either.
But therein lies the problem. The Celtics are a weirdly-built team trying to audition help for next year’s run. The players acquired this offseason weren’t chosen in an effort to knock the Oklahoma City Thunder off their perch. Brad Stevens filled his basket with random ingredients that may or may not work, and is currently putting Joe Mazzulla through an 82-game season of Chopped. All the while, we’re all sitting in the front of the house, wondering why the plates we’re being served are so inconsistent, often confusing, and sometimes just plain bad.
Guys like White and Pritchard are being looked at to pitch in and help Brown, but they haven't been able to find their footing yet. But let’s be real, here. If Mazzulla is yelling at guys to explain basic things, it’s hard for the guys who know how to do other things to function properly.
Watch this clip and listen for Mazzulla to yell for Josh Minott (at :07), then yell “ROLL, JOSH. ROLL!” (:08-:10). Then another “ROLL!” (:13), to which Minott looks back at the bench confused, and one more “ROLL, JOSH!” (:15). Then Pritchard just tries to create because he has no choice.
The timing and spacing have been shot. The whole play has disintegrated. At :28, you can see Mazzulla explaining to Minott that he has to pick and then roll.
But Minott is playing center in this lineup, which he hasn’t ever really done before this season. Hell, he hasn’t ever really played before this season, much less played, started, then not started, then learned a new position because his team stumbled onto a thing that sort of worked a couple of times, and now they're figuring it out on the fly.
All the while, two very good players who have been counted on for a lot, and who have delivered when on a team with other very good players with defined roles and who knew what they were doing, are being blamed for not delivering in this situation. The expectations are high for them, but based on who their new teammates are, the reactions to their performances might be a little unfair.
Pardon me as I channel my inner Mazzulla, but unfair expectations are a compliment. We expect these things because we think these guys are good enough to deliver on them. At the same time, it’s still asking a lot.
Last year’s offense was all about killer whales working together to harness the power of the collective to hunt efficiently so everyone eats. This year’s is probably closer to border collies herding chickens. There are a few super smart dogs on the floor, and then a bunch of guys just kind of running around sometimes. Sometimes they are all in line and it looks perfect. Then sometimes they get scattered and somehow it ends up being the dog’s fault for not keeping the others in line.
But that is, in fact, their job. And they are trying like hell to figure it out. There are nights, like Wednesday against Detroit, where they look like they have it down pat. Then there are nights like this one, where it can look good sometimes and not so great at others.
Jaylen Brown is the biggest dog in the yard right now, and he can make everything look easy for the Celtics. He knows where his help is, and they know they need to be there for him, but as long as the offense devolves into herding chickens, it’s going to be hard for them to consistently come through.