Jaylen Brown helps Celtics dismantle Pacers in Game 2 after All-NBA snub (2024)

BOSTON — The additional accolades for rounding out his game this season haven’t come. Not yet. Maybe they never will.

Jaylen Brown is still better than ever. He declared it earlier this season. He has shown it since.

For proof, start with the trust the Celtics placed in him Thursday night. Don’t just watch Brown’s buckets, though he scored plenty of them while leading his team with 40 points. Dig deeper than that. Examine how thoroughly he controlled Boston’s 126-110 Game 2 win over the Indiana Pacers to take a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference finals series. Observe how intelligently he attacked the Pacers’ smaller guards and wings. Notice how, once Brown started rolling, Boston ran possession after possession through him.

“He’s damn near impossible to guard when he’s got it like that,” teammate Derrick White said. “He was unreal. He scored 40 points, but, like, he just continued to make the right read and the right play. He just had poise and patience to get to his spots.”

One day after learning he did not make any of the All-NBA teams, Brown scored 24 points in the first half. He finished as a plus-18 for the game. He ruthlessly broke down the Pacers’ defense for himself and others, showing off the extra layers of awareness he has added to his game. The Celtics trailed by two points entering the second quarter, but Brown dominated as they opened the period on a 17-0 run.

In the locker room afterward, several of Brown’s teammates brought up his All-NBA snub on their own. White said the voters might have spent too much time focusing on numbers while overlooking just how much Brown impacted the league’s best team.

“I don’t know what they missed, but Jaylen Brown is one of the 15 best players in this game,” White said. “The whole season, both sides of the ball, he just did so much for us to help us win games, which is the meaning of the game. It’s a shame.”

The All-NBA debate could rage on. With the Celtics six wins away from a championship, it shouldn’t be the most important focus for anyone on the team. It certainly didn’t seem to be the focus for Brown.

“We’re two games from the (NBA) Finals,” Brown said. “So honestly, I don’t have the time to give a f—.”

Still, Brown sounded frustrated that other players receive more adulation. If he is bothered, that’s only natural. He landed on the second-team All-NBA last season, then dropped off it even after improving significantly in the areas that matter most. He locked in on defense. He developed his basketball intelligence. He committed to doing whatever it took to win games even as his scoring average dipped. But it did dip. Maybe that cost him in the All-NBA voting this time around?

“I watch guys get praised and anointed who I feel like are half as talented as me on either side of the ball,” Brown said. “But at this point in my life, I just embrace it. It comes with being who I am and what I stand for, and I ain’t really changing that. So I just come out and I’m grateful to step out onto the floor each and every night, put my best foot forward and get better each and every year. Whether people appreciate it or not, it is what it is.”

This playoff run should earn Brown more appreciation. Over the Celtics’ first 12 postseason games, he has averaged 24.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game while shooting 54.4 percent from the field. During the second round, he said he believed nobody on the Cavaliers could guard him. During the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals, he has played like nobody on the Pacers can, either.

Brown seems as locked in as ever. Even after rescuing the Celtics in the opening game of the Eastern Conference finals, he sounded surly. Brown didn’t seem as excited about his game-tying 3-pointer, the most memorable bucket of Boston’s playoff run to date, as he seemed frustrated by the reason he even needed to take and make such a big shot. He believed the Celtics should have played better. He thought their defense didn’t live up to its usual standard. His team still won, but that wasn’t good enough for Brown. It bothered him that the Celtics had left themselves so vulnerable.

Deep in the playoffs again, Brown wants to leave no doubt this time. Based on the urgency he has expressed since the postseason began, he is sick of falling short. He is determined to prove the Celtics are ready now. If they are, he must know, it will be in large part because he is ready now. He is a more complete player even if the All-NBA voting did not reflect it.

“The main thing about J.B. is every year he’s gotten so much better,” White said. “He’s just reading the game better. I think maybe before he got sped up and wasn’t really reading it, but now you can’t really speed him up. And he’s just making the right reads time and time again. That’s big time for us. He’s definitely an All-NBA snub.”

Former Celtic Marcus Smart used to joke about Brown driving to the basket like a chicken with its head cut off. Now, Brown is playing the game on his terms.

“He has an innate ability to just get better and to work hard, motivation, he has unreal confidence, but he’s also not afraid to work on things that he knows he has to get better at,” coach Joe Mazzulla said. “So you see him every day at shoot around or practice, he’s out there with six or seven coaches working on every possession, every spacing imaginable so that he sees his reads. He just cares about the right stuff.”

The Celtics have committed to putting aside individual agendas all season. Still, if there’s a right way to react to an All-NBA snub, Mazzulla believes Brown will find it.

“Jaylen is just one of my favorite people,” Mazzulla said. “How does he handle it? I think he cares about it in a way that motivates him, and I think he doesn’t really care about it at all because he understands that winning is the most important thing.”

(Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

Jay King is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Boston Celtics. He previously covered the team for MassLive for five years. He also co-hosts the "Anything Is Poddable" podcast. Follow Jay on Twitter @byjayking