Jaylen Brown got stuck in some brutal Boston traffic Thursday, a delay so bad that the Celtics star didn’t have time for warmups ahead of the NBA Finals rematch against the Golden State Warriors.
While he started the contest 0-for-3 from three-point range, he saved his best play for crunch time, drilling the game-tying three-pointer with 18 seconds left to send it to overtime. Brown had five points and two assists in the extra frame to help lead Boston to a 121-118 win over the defending champions.
According to MassLive’s Souichi Terada, the busy streets of “Beantown” also impacted Golden State head coach Steve Kerr.
Brown not only had to deal with going into action Thursday colder than usual, but the matchup against the Dubs was his first game in one week. The one-time All-Star missed the previous three games due to right adductor tightness.
The Celtics went 3-0 without Brown and are 5-0 without him this season. That’s not to say that Boston is a better team without Jayson Tatum’s star sidekick — far from it — but it shows that the C’s are far from a two-man squad.
The team has been on fire essentially all season, entering Friday with an NBA-best 34-12 record, and increased its lead atop the Eastern Conference to 4.5 games over both the Milwaukee Bucks (29-16) and Philadelphia 76ers (29-16). First-year head coach Joe Mazzulla’s crew is on an eight-game winning streak and will try to make it nine when the Celtics face the Toronto Raptors on the road at 5 p.m. ET on Saturday.
