Jaylen Brown looking more comfortable

One of the many positive signs seen in the Celtics blowout victory of the Detroit Pistons was the way Jaylen Brown played on both ends of the court. As Steve Bulpett points out:

Jaylen Brown beat his season-high of 13 points with 14 in the first half and finished with 19, though his work as the primary defender on Blake Griffin was probably more important to the outcome.

Brown looked comfortable both shooting from outside (hitting 3 of his 7 three point attempts) and driving to the hoop (where he didn’t force things that weren’t there).

Clearly he was battling a shooting slump in the early days of the season, hitting just 15 of his 49 shots in the first 5 games. So it must have felt very good for him to see the ball go through the basket. But was he worried? Apparently not.

Still, even the most confident players can lose some of their swagger when the ball keeps caroming off the rim. You tend to start thinking about the shot which leads to overthinking it. This may or may not be what’s going on with Kyrie Irving (who I’m not in the least worried about).

The great thing about Brown (and Irving for that matter) is that he never stopped contributing to the team. There were moments where he showed some real court vision and creativity. He had moments of attacking the basket aggressively.

To top it off, he played some amazing defense on Blake Griffin last night, which set the stage for the most convincing win of the season.

For much of the first few games it was looking like Jaylen Brown could be the “odd man out” in the new pecking order. He may yet end up being the 5th best player in a really good starting lineup, but I have a feeling that he’ll make his presence felt enough to be a problem for other teams this year.