Jaylen Brown will miss the remainder of the 2020-21 season for the Boston Celtics due to a wrist injury.
Brown had found himself on the injury report multiple times this season, including an ankle injury, a shoulder ailment and knee tendinitis. The wrist injury, revealed to be a torn scapholunate ligament in his left wrist, per the team, had not been documented.
“Even asking Jaylen, we’re having that conversation, he wasn’t 100 percent sure exactly when it first started,” Celtics head coach Brad Stevens said on a pregame video conference with reporters before Tuesday’s contest against the Miami Heat. “It was sore at times, but never at a point where he didn’t think about it from a playing standpoint.”
Stevens explained how Brown thought it was sorer last week when he was recovering from an ankle injury that caused him to miss three games. It prompted the 24-year-old to go for imaging Friday, and ultimately the Celtics took the next few days to gather information before making an official announcement Monday.
Stevens said the first time he had heard about Brown’s wrist injury was Friday. He also revealed how the All-Star guard already has left Boston and will undergo surgery later this week.
“I think, obviously, you feel for Jaylen. He had a great year. He’s such an important part of us in the here and now and as we move forward,” Stevens said. “We’re all encouraged he’s going to be fine after the surgery and recover 110 percent. So, first and foremost, you think about him in that situation.
“And then, I think even we talked about it a little bit the other day, we’re going to have to make small tweaks to re-invent ourselves on the fly a little bit because he’s a critical part of what we were doing and how we like to play on both ends of the court,” Stevens said. “Most things remain the same, it’s not an ideal time to do that, but ultimately that’s the challenging task. I thought we did some things to build off of in the second half the other day, with that group (without Brown), and that’s the group we’ll be moving forward with.”
Brown was in the midst of a career year while averaging 24.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shooting 48.4 percent from the field including 39.7 percent from 3-point range.
“It’s too bad because he was having such a good year and had put so much work into it and everybody wants to be playing at this time of year,” Stevens said.
