There were a number of things that changed for the Boston Celtics in their Game 4 victory over the Miami Heat on Tuesday night.
The C's adjusted to nearly every wrinkle that hindered them in the first three games of the Eastern Conference finals, playing with pace and moving the ball on the offensive end to effectively penetrate the Heat's zone defense and running Miami off the three-point line and forcing mistakes on defensive end. The one player whose improved play was especially evident in the Celtics' dominant second half effort? Jaylen Brown.
If we're putting it nicely, Brown had been a hinderance to the Celtics in the first three games of the series. He turned the ball over a total of 11 times, shot 2-for-20 from beyond the arc, surpassed the 20-point mark just once and finished as a minus-46 in 105 total minutes on the court. Those are not the numbers of an All-NBA player, which sparked questions as to what the Heat were doing to have such a great effect on such a great player.
Brown, to his credit, had an explanation.
"The way they play defense, the way they play zone, the way they try to hide matchups, they try to make sure they keep their primary defenders up higher and try to hide their lesser defenders," Brown said following Game 4, per NBA-provided video. "It's been taking us a little while to kind of figure it out. It ain't always going to be you scoring the ball normally because they're not guarding us normally. So, you just have to find ways to impact winning, and we've got to trust each other out there, and that's what we're figuring out as we continue on with this series."
That "trust" mentioned by Brown seemed to be the catalyst in his improved play, as the 26-year-old finished with a 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in Boston's win on Tuesday. He also scored 17 points to go along with his first two steals of the series in a plus-9 effort when on the court. Brown even sparked the Celtics' largest run of Game 4, stealing the ball on back-to-back possessions in the third quarter amid an 18-0 stretch.
Though he wasn't perfect, routinely struggling to make the right reads at the rim, Brown sees the light at the end of tunnel.
"I can't force it," Brown admitted following Game 4. "They're trying to make me a playmaker, so tonight I think I did a better job of just getting into the paint and kicking it out. We got an advantage, made the next pass, and was able to get some open looks pretty much all night. I think as that goes, as I continue to do that, my shot will start falling, and then we'll be able to go on a little run."
