Jaylen Brown looks set to stay and sign a long-term contract with the Boston Celtics despite his struggles in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat.
On Monday night, Heat star Jimmy Butler scored 28 points to lead his team past the Celtics with a 103-84 victory in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The result means Miami will face two-time MVP Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals, while the Celtics fall at the final hurdle for the fourth time in seven seasons.
Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum injured his left ankle early on and struggled with the injury throughout the contest, finishing with just 14 points while the Celtics shot a measly 9-for-42 from three as a unit. With Tatum battling on despite his injury, fans would have hoped to see Brown step up but the guard floundered throughout the series.
Brown went 8-of-23 from the field and had eight turnovers and five assists in the Celtics' all-important seventh-game defeat. For the series, he averaged 19.0 points and shot 17.6 percent from deep.
His numbers are down on there regular season, where the 26-year-old averaged 26.9 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists en route to securing his first All-NBA selection. While he ultimately struggled when the lights were brightest, but ESPN’s Brian Windhorst insisted he expects the Celtics to re-sign Brown when he is eligible.
“I would be stunned”, Windhorst said when asked if Game 7 was Brown and Tatum’s last game as teammates while on the Hoop Collective podcast. “In talking to people on both sides, I think there's a very good chance they're gonna find ground on that.”
Regardless, fans will undoubtedly wonder whether Brown is the type of player worthy of being considered a centrepiece for a franchise, as well as the supermax extension he will be eligible to receive. The defeat to the Heat - and the underwhelming Game 3 loss in particular - will spark questions over whether the Celtics should finally end the Brown-Tatum experiment heading into the 2023/24 NBA season.
However, Tatum heaped praise on his running mate immediately after Game 7. When asked how important it is to retain Brown, the 25-year-old said: “He’s one of the best players in this league, plays both ends of the ball and still relatively young. He’s accomplished a lot so far in his career so I think it’s extremely important.”
It is shaping up to be a crucial offseason for Boston, with the decision regarding Brown potentially era-defining as the likes of Tatum enter their prime years. The Celtics fell to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals a year ago - and it is the closes the franchise have come to winning a championship for the first time since 2008.
