Jaylen Brown returned to the court Tuesday for the Boston Celtics, and while a 122-108 defeat wasn’t the end result the team was hoping for, it still was an encouraging individual performance.
Brown, who missed each of the last two games with knee soreness, showed little signs of rust early on en route to a 33-point output. It was another noteworthy performance in a season full of them.
The Celtics wing started off Tuesday’s game by hitting three of his first four shots from the field — all 3-pointers — helping the Celtics take an early 9-2 lead all by himself. He scored 20 first-half points on 70 percent from the field before concluding 12-for-20 from the floor.
Brown’s team-high in points was complemented by his team-best eight rebounds.
“It definitely felt better in the first half than second half, that third quarter there was a stretch where it was bothering me a little bit,” Brown told reporters after the game when asked about his knee. “It’s moving in the right direction. Looking forward to staying on the court and being there for our team because we need some wins right now.”
Brown didn’t play in either a win over the Los Angeles Clippers and loss to the Phoenix Suns. His last appearance was Feb. 3 against the Sacramento Kings.
“Over the course of the season, it’s been bothering me for a couple weeks now, even dating back to like Philadelphia it’s been bothering me,” Brown explained. “… But this trip, the Sacramento game, I was in a lot of pain, I couldn’t move the way I wanted to move.
“I felt a lot better out there today, I moved a lot better and stuff like that. I want to definitely keep moving in the right direction.”
Brown played 37 minutes in the loss.
“There wasn’t much concern with him playing his normal minutes tonight,” head coach Brad Stevens told reporters after the game. “They felt like he was really progressed. He was just sore from the Sacramento game and five, six days later, whatever it is, he felt a lot better today.”
Here are some other notes from Celtics-Jazz:
— It was another down night for Kemba Walker, who connected on just two of his 12 shots from the floor on the way to a mere seven points in 30 minutes. Over the last two games, Walker has made six of 32 shots.
Stevens expressed how he and the rest of the coaching staff need to do things to help put Walker in a position to succeed going forward.
“But I think we need to look at ways to do a better job, as a staff, of helping him,” Stevens told reporters after the game. “And certainly I think we’ll keep going ’cause I thought that he did — he’s struggled to shoot it in each of the last two games — but he’s doing a lot of other things.”
Walker did chip in a team-high seven assists.
“He’s a huge part of us if we’re going to be what we want to be, and I really, really believe he will be that guy,” Stevens added.
— Daniel Theis had another efficient night on the offensive side of the floor.
The Celtics big man was 5-for-8 from the field including a staggering 5-for-6 from 3-point range. It was a career-high in makes behind the arc, per Celtics Stats.
Theis also added four rebounds before fouling out in 28 minutes.
— Boston now heads home after finishing up a tough five-game road trip out West. The C’s finished the trip below .500 (2-3) with Tuesday’s defeat coming after losses to the Suns and Kings.
Boston, however, defeated both the Golden State Warriors and Clippers. The Celtics are now 3-5 against Western Conference foes this season.
— The 12-11 Celtics return to TD Garden on Thursday as they host the Toronto Raptors. They’ll play five of their next six games at home.
