Draymond Green, Warriors Explain Odd Defensive Strategy On Jaylen Brown

Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown continuously found himself wide open on the perimeter in the first quarter of Sunday’s matchup against the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors surprisingly wanted it that way and Brown sure made them pay for the puzzling defensive strategy.

Brown poured in 19 of his game-high 29 points in the opening frame as Boston demolished Golden State, 140-88, at TD Garden. Eight-time All-Defensive selection Draymond Green was matched up on Brown but severely sagged off the Celtics forward, daring him to shoot. Brown obliged and knocked down five of nine triples in the stanza, including sinking a trey on three straight possessions to spark a 23-1 run to end the quarter.

Green said the Warriors came up with the perplexing tactic to guard Brown that way just before the game.

“We implemented the strategy like 15 minutes before we left the locker room,” Green told reporters, per The Athletic’s Anthony Slater. “I don’t necessarily think we put together a full defensive strategy to debate on what they’re doing with their offense and how to stop it.”

Green added: “Hey, it ain’t work. Oh well. We move on. I thought it was fun to try. I was actually all for it. Like, let’s try it and see if it works. If it don’t, oh well. If it does, we found something. All right, it ain’t work. So we move on.”

Warriors superstar Steph Curry revealed Golden State was trying to find a weak spot in Boston’s offense, which owns the best offensive rating in the NBA. Obviously, Brown’s outside shooting wasn’t it as even without Kristaps Porzingis the Celtics scored a franchise-record 82 points in the first half.

“It was kind of a joint decision, coaching staff, obviously the leaders on the team to try something different,” Curry told reporters, per CLNS Media’s Bobby Manning. “They’ve been playing at a high level and a team that has that many threats, you try to find some weak spot to see if it will throw them off a little bit. Obviously, it didn’t work, and it affected our offense a little bit tonight. No regrets on how we approached it. Again, a good learning lesson for us to take the hit that we took tonight but not let it linger into another game.”

Like Green and Curry, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who was ready to move on from the lopsided loss after the defeat, explained it was an experimental defense that Golden State deployed.

Safe to say, it was a failed experiment as Kerr also pointed to another area in which Golden State lapsed defensively that proved costly.

“You try different things,” Kerr told reporters, per Slater. “You have to pick your matchups. We wanted Draymond to be able to help on drives and make sure we weren’t giving up easy stuff in the paint. The killer was the transition, from the beginning all the way to the end. They got 42 transition points. You’re not winning a game with that kind of lack of defensive awareness.”