Jaylen Brown isn’t turning the page without facing the music after his overtime botch against the New York Knicks on Thursday night at TD Garden.
Brown, who delivered a go-ahead layup with 24.1 seconds left in overtime, had the chance to deliver a win for the Celtics with even less time remaining. However, that didn’t come to fruition. Instead, Brown fell apart in the biggest moment of the game.
With the Celtics down 118-117, and an opportunity to take the lead with 7.6 seconds left, Brown missed back-to-back free throw attempts. And from then on, that was all she wrote.
Afterward, Brown didn’t hesitate to own his responsibility for the 120-117 loss — Boston’s third in a row. In fact, Brown suggested that the missed free-throw chances were what “embodied” his entire performance.
“Tonight was just a rough game,” Brown said, as seen on NBC Sports Boston’s postgame coverage. “I’m a better basketball player than I played today and those two missed free throws kind of embodied the whole game for me. Didn’t really get it going, didn’t get my team enough energy to win and that’s what happens when you don’t come out and give your best. And I’ll be better.”
Brown added: “We dropped the ball and I dropped the ball as a leader. I didn’t give out the energy needed to help the team win and those two free throws at the end kind of just embodied the whole performance tonight.”
While the charity stripe visit was certainly daunting, Brown was within reach from an on-brand performance. Brown scored 22 points, yet shot just 8-of-22 from the field and 1-of-8 from 3-point territory. He also collected nine rebounds, two assists and one steal. His overtime layup was his only made basket on two attempts in the period.
However, Brown saw little to no reason to label his display as anything more than “just inefficient.”
“Just didn’t really insert myself into the game,” Brown said. “Was just kind of waiting around for the game to kind of come to you. And at points, I’m one of the players that can take control of the game. I kind of didn’t do that. I wasn’t efficient tonight. I had a couple of turnovers that I could took back and overall just a lackluster performance. I could’ve played a lot better. … It just wasn’t a version of Jaylen that I know I can be.”
