Celtics

Celtics' Jaylen Brown Gives Honest Assessment of His Game 7 Performance

Jaylen Brown gives honest assessment of his Game 7 performance originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Celtics needed an excellent performance from Jaylen Brown against the Miami Heat in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, and the veteran guard failed to deliver.

Celtics forward Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle just 20 seconds into Monday night's matchup and he was never the same after that. He was clearly in pain all night and didn't have anywhere near his normal level of athleticism on both ends of the court.

With Boston's best player hobbled, the opportunity arose for Brown to step up as the No. 1 option offensively.

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Instead of rising to the challenge, Brown finished with just 19 points on 8-for-23 shooting, including a lackluster 1-for-9 rate from 3-point range. He also committed eight turnovers, and for most of the game he had more turnovers than the entire Heat team. Many of those turnovers led to Heat points. 

Brown's performance was one of several reasons why the Celtics' season came to an end with a 103-84 loss at TD Garden.

"Just a terrible game. When my team needed me most, like JT hurt his ankle, first play of the game, and you could see it swelling up on him," Brown told reporters. "He couldn't move out there. It was tough for him. My team turned to me to make plays and I came up short, I failed. It's tough. I give credit to Miami, but just a terrible job."

How does the team move on from such a difficult defeat?

"You take it on the chin," Brown said. "You learn from it. As hard as this one is right now to swallow, you get better. It's a tough one. Tough one. Tough one for me. Tough one for our team. Tough one for our organization. Extremely bad timing. You just, you learn. That's a part of the journey. This is not the end. We got a lot better to get, a lot of better basketball to play and you just got to look at it like that. But tough night."

Tatum: It's 'extremely important' for Celtics to keep Jaylen Brown

Brown had a tremendous season overall. He made the All-NBA second team for the first time after averaging career highs 26.6 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game. He also shot a career-best 49.1 percent from the field and 76.5 percent from the free throw line. His performance dipped in the playoffs, though, and that made it tough for the Celtics to get back to the NBA Finals.

It's going to be a pivotal summer for Brown.

He's eligible to sign a supermax contract extension worth $295 million over five years. How much has Brown thought about his future?

"I expected to win today and move on. That's what my focus was on and that's what my focus has been on," Brown said. "We failed. I failed. It's hard to think about anything else right now, to be honest. We'll cross that bridge when we get there."

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