The Celtics’ 18-point lead had been whittled away to just three. Grumblings of “here we go again” were starting to waft through the TD Garden as Celtics fans feared a painful repeat of what they saw the last time the Knicks were in town back in the spring.
If there was ever a time for Jaylen Brown to prove he is an alpha dog, this was it.
Mikal Bridges was unconscious. The Knicks were talking a lot of smack. Joe Mazzulla was forced to call a timeout with 6:28 to go. What was Brown going to do to save his team?
It turns out the answer was ‘pass the ball to Jordan Walsh.’
“They started doubling me, so I wanted to make sure,” Brown said after the win over New York. “I wanted to see if that was the coverage, so I just dragged it out. And if you got two on the ball, the correct play is to get off of it, and that means we got an advantage on the backside. So that's just the right basketball play, no matter what time in the game it is. And I trust my teammates.”
The Knicks were probably hoping Brown would start trying to do too much. I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Tom Thibodeau let Brown in on some of this thought process when he visited the practice facility in the preseason. Brown has had a tendency to take things upon himself a little too much in these situations, so why not test it with some double teams and see if some turnovers shook free?
They didn’t … at least not until the game was pretty much in hand … because Brown kept his wits and kept it simple. For the second game in a row, the Celtics closed out a hard-charging opponent with Brown giving the ball up in key moments to take advantage of the defense.
“I'm still learning and growing, to be honest,” Brown said. “I'm still, every game, I take information and apply it to the next game. Obviously, this year, I have more responsibility … I'm in a new position, and I'm still figuring it out. So I'll just take what the defense gives me, learning when to be aggressive, learning when to get off the ball. It's all stuff that I'm still getting better at every game.”
Brown and Walsh have developed a bond this season. Walsh has already expressed an appreciation for Brown going to bat for him with Mazzulla. Walsh has capitalized on this opportunity and is thriving in it now, thanks to Brown’s continued support, this time in the form of trust to make the next right play.
“I'm glad that -- it was me in those moments to be able to help him,” Walsh said. “I feel like me and his connection, off the court and on the court, have grown so much and it's come so far that he can trust me in those moments. I feel like that's huge. Not just us, but our team. Having another guy out there who he believes in."
Walsh fortified that belief by making hustle play after hustle play. No one on the floor wanted that win more than Walsh down the stretch. They were the best minutes of his career.
“The last six minutes of the game, he was just a great playmaker,” Mazzulla said. “He had offensive rebounds, he made plays in the seam. He was great at the point of attack defensively.”
Walsh is the epitome of an energy guy, but his growth has been supercharged by him actually relaxing a bit.
“I think I'm way more calm, way more focused, and obviously have slowed down a lot since my rookie year,” Walsh admitted. “I was a mess rookie year. I was just running around … I gotta slow down otherwise I'm going to be exhausted."
This goes to one of my favorite concepts: slowing down to speed up. Walsh’s biggest issue was playing so fast that he was making mistakes, which cost him and the team. By calming down and playing under more control, Walsh can make plays because he’s getting things right on the first try instead of charging in and then having to recover from his own errors.
Walsh wasn’t guaranteed to even make this roster. The Celtics could have moved on from him in the preseason and the worst reaction might have been a Seinfeldian “that’s a shame.” He didn’t play in four of his first eight games this season and in the other four, only one was for an extended period of time. And that was in the blowout loss to Houston where Mazzulla was desperate to find anything that worked.
A lot has changed in less than 30 days.
“Jordan is playing like a grown man,” Brown said. “And it’s amazing to see. Just from him coming out of his shell, being aggressive, he's learning every day. So I'm loving it.”
Walsh has now started nine straight games. He’s defending everyone on the floor and crashing the glass. Every once in a while, he knocks down an open shot, and when it’s not there, he has no problem attacking and moving the ball. He has the trust of his coach and star teammate, and against the Knicks, he cashed it in to close out a big win.
“Pregame tonight I was talking to my agent. I remember we sat down earlier last month and was like, ‘It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen.’” Walsh said. “I thought about it today and coming in and being able to finish the game out tonight is obviously a big step for me. I’m super-glad I can affect the game.”
