BOSTON — Jaylen Brown wanted to play in Game 1 against the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday night.
The Boston Celtics star guard was pleading with the training staff two hours before tip-off to let him suit up for the start of the C’s second-round NBA playoff series at TD Garden despite having a sore hamstring.
In the end, Brown sat out of Boston’s 117-101 win over the 76ers, and it might have been Al Horford’s pregame wisdom that helped put the guard’s mind at ease.
“Yeah, you know Jaylen is a competitor,” Horford said after the game. “I know that he was doing everything he could to be out there. His health is most important and we didn’t want any setbacks with him. One of the things, when I talked to him I said, “hey, we obviously really need you out there, but we need you for the long run.We need you to be healthy and to feel good. We don’t want you to come back tonight and reaggravate and be out for a long period of time.’ Hopefully, now he has a couple days to recover and he’ll be back Thursday.”
Wise words from the veteran forward.
Boston dominated the 76ers for much of the game thanks to suffocating defense and huge games from Horford, Terry Rozier and Jayson Tatum.
If Brown’s sore hamstring is good to go in Game 2, the Celtics will have another weapon in the arsenal as they look to take a 2-0 series lead.
