Jaylen Brown taught the Warriors a pretty straightforward lesson and one they likely won’t forget.
Brown went off during the Celtics’ 140-88 win over the Warriors and he took it personally after he felt he was disrespected by the other team.
The Warriors gave Brown rare space in an attempt to entice him to shoot.
“First time it’s ever happened to me,” Brown said. “Honestly, I was a bit surprised. Took a little bit of adjusting. … But if you want to dare me to shoot, we can do that too. I thought it was a little disrespectful. But we took advantage of it and we didn’t look back.”
Brown finished the game with 29 points and had already racked up 19 points with five 3-pointers in the first quarter alone on Sunday.
He ended up shooting 11-of-19 from the floor in the victory.
But Brown said that there wasn’t anything personal about what had happened with Golden state’s failed strategy.
“It’s never personal,” Brown said of his feelings when teams force him to shoot the ball. “I’m sure they thought that’s what their best chance was, or whoever came up with their defensive concept. So, it’s not personal. It was a little disrespectful, to me, but it is what is. I came out and I did what I do best.”
Brown’s 5.6 3-pointer attempts this season is a career low for the Celtics star but his 36.3 percent career 3-point shooting suggests he can make those types of shots.
It seems it was a last-minute strategy put together by the Warriors, who beat the Celtics in six games in the 2022 NBA Finals.
“We implemented the strategy like 15 minutes before we left the locker room,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said afterwards.
“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.”
The Celtics commanded the game on Sunday night and outscored the Warriors by 22 points in the first two quarters of the game.