BOSTON — The crowd rose with Jaylen Brown as he flew down the right side of the lane. It had been a while since he morphed into lightning in transition, but after picking Cory Joseph’s pocket, Brown sped up. Paolo Banchero chased Brown from behind, but Brown only surged farther and farther ahead of the Orlando Magic wing.
Despite an injured right knee that had hampered him since mid-March, Brown wouldn’t slow down. He planted his left foot and took off from the first hashmark in the lane. It was the same type of dunk he had completed countless times in his career, but few of his past dunks dragged so many questions behind them.
Would Brown’s next gear be there when he reached for it? Would he beat Banchero to the hoop for his trademark fast-break slam? And, more broadly, with Jayson Tatum sidelined by a bone bruise in his right wrist, would Brown’s play suggest he was ready physically to handle an extra burden, not just in Wednesday night’s Game 2 but whenever needed throughout the rest of the playoffs?
Yes. Yes. And, well, the outlook is currently promising. Though Brown couldn’t have possibly proven Wednesday that his body will hold up for the entire playoff run, he delivered a reassuring 36 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in the Celtics’ 109-100 win.
“He’s a high-level player,” Payton Pritchard said. “Top of the game. He brought it tonight. He’s ready to (go) full-throttle now.”
JB FLIGHT CREW ✈️ pic.twitter.com/ywgNInIxCD
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 24, 2025
For the first time since March 12, Brown received more than 30 minutes in a game. He played 42 minutes, including all but the final 44.7 seconds of the second half. He still had plenty of bounce in his legs late in the game, sinking three clutch shots after the Magic pulled within 7 points with 4:14 left. For the game, he shot 12-for-19 from the field, including 5-for-7 from behind the arc. With Tatum out, Brown controlled more of the Celtics’ offense. He beat his man consistently. He found open teammates when the Magic committed to stopping him. On both ends of the court, he tapped into the inner electricity he hadn’t always been able to summon since the injury.
“Obviously, he always transmits this kind of energy,” Kristaps Porziņģis said. “He’s willing to leave it all out there for the team and sacrifice himself, his body, for the game. And everybody respects that. And he was leading us today on both ends. He was doing JB. That’s what we expect from him.”
Just two weeks ago, during his final outing of the regular season, Brown appeared hobbled enough that Porziņģis questioned whether he should have even been on the court. Brown then missed the final three games of the regular season and received injections in his injured knee, which sidelined him for eight of Boston’s final 16 regular-season games. Though he later said he wouldn’t have a minutes restriction in the playoffs, that didn’t necessarily mean his body would be ready to handle all the rigors of a long postseason. Especially at playoff time, Brown plays hard minutes. He shadows star players full court. He drives into the paint repeatedly. He welcomes physicality. To embrace all of those challenges, as he normally does, he would need to feel confident in his body.
Brown looked prepared for the fight Wednesday.
“You just trust the mindset and, really, the warrior mentality that he has,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “He knows his mind, he knows his body, and he can take it to another level mentally and physically. And tonight, he did that for the team on both ends of the floor, especially to start that third quarter for us.”
After the Magic had cut the Celtics’ lead to 50-49 on the opening possession of the third quarter, Brown took over. He pulled up for 3 over Wendell Carter Jr., then splashed home another 3 over Franz Wagner on the following Celtics possession. Though hot, Brown didn’t go out of his way to look for his own offense. Instead, showing the maturity he has developed over the years, he used the threat of his own shot to free up others. When the Magic double-teamed him, he found Jrue Holiday cutting toward the hoop. When the ball swung to Brown on the wing against a rotating Magic defense, he threw an extra pass to Derrick White in the corner. Instead of forcing the action in transition, Brown calmly found Holiday, who immediately fed Porziņģis for an easy layup. In an 11-0 Celtics run, everything started with Brown.
“At the end of the day, he’s willing to do whatever it takes for us to win,” Mazzulla said. “And he didn’t come in saying he had to get 36 and 10. He came in and said, ‘I’m going to do whatever it takes to win.’ And that’s what he told me yesterday. That’s just the mindset that he has. So, regardless if it’s going well for him or not, he can take it to another level, and he did that for us, and I thought the guys kind of fed off of that.”
Why did Brown tell Mazzulla he would be willing to do whatever it took to win?
“What am I supposed to say?” Brown said. “Was I supposed to say something different?”
“That’s every night,” Brown added. “It’s the playoffs. It’s win or go home. We’ve got a lot of people that are cheering for us. There’s a lot of people around the organization that put energy and effort in every single night. It’s whatever it takes.”
Let it fly JB 👌🏾
JB with the dagger in tonight’s @newbalancehoops Play of the Game pic.twitter.com/2ehpOFerHj
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 24, 2025
The Magic never went away in Game 2, but Brown answered when they started to close the gap late. After a Kentavious Caldwell-Pope free throw cut Boston’s lead to 96-89 with 4:14 left, Brown burst past Wagner for a short floater from the right side of the paint. Following a Celtics stop, Brown danced back and forth against Banchero before draining a high-arcing jump shot from the free-throw line. That pushed Boston’s lead back to 11 points and ended Orlando’s threat.
Before Wednesday, Brown had spent the last month-plus working on his changeup and curveball. But he’s usually a fastball pitcher. Even if he sometimes succeeded while nibbling around the corners, the Celtics must have known they would eventually need him to reach back and overwhelm batters with smoke. They didn’t need that type of heat from Brown in Game 1. With the game well in hand, he sat out the entire fourth quarter, suggesting the coaching staff wanted to limit his playing time when possible. He played well enough while scoring 16 points over 30 minutes but was still relatively quiet.
Not in Game 2. Mazzulla believed the outing said a lot about Brown, who scored 12 points in the first quarter. Porziņģis echoed that sentiment.
“There’s no challenge big enough for him,” Porziņģis said. “Like, he can do whatever. He’s just going to keep taking care of (the knee) and keep playing the same way, and we’re going to be happy.”
Brown’s teammates might have been happy, but he wasn’t satisfied after taking a 2-0 lead against Orlando.
“Why would I (be)?” Brown said. “(There’s) another game to be played.”
Over the rest of the series, Brown wants Boston to score more efficiently against the rugged Magic defense. The Celtics shot just 35.9 percent in the first half Wednesday but still led 50-47 at the break, thanks partly to how often they got to the line. Tatum, considered day to day, would reopen parts of his team’s offense if he can return in Game 3.
If he’s again unavailable, more responsibility should fall to Brown again. He has been open about suppressing parts of his individual game for the betterment of the team but has also insisted that, when needed, he will be capable of doing more.
“It’s no different (without Tatum),” Brown said. “Obviously, JT is the offensive leader of our team. We all kind of play off of him, but any given night, I could rise to the occasion. I just do what the team needs me to do. I’ve taken that mentality, and I think sometimes people think that’s the only thing that you can do. So tonight I got lucky, I guess, but we’ll be ready for the next one.”
Lucky?
“I mean, I made some shots, some tough baskets,” Brown said. “But we got to be better for Game 3. ”
(Photo of Jaylen Brown and Paolo Banchero: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)