After being snubbed for All-NBA, Jaylen Brown explodes for 40 points in Game 2: “I don’t got the time to give a ****”

On Wednesday night, Jaylen Brown was left off of All-NBA teams despite having the best two-way season of his career.

So, on Thursday night, he exploded for 40 points – tied for a postseason career-high – as the Celtics beat the Pacers 126-110 to take a 2-0 series lead.

So, did the All-NBA snub serve as motivation?

“We’re two games from the Finals,” Brown said flatly postgame. “Honestly, I don’t got the time to give a f***.”

He certainly played like someone focused on a goal larger than a personal accolade; even when Brown had it going, he opted to find his teammates, twice kicking it out to Derrick White for open three-pointers in the third quarter despite the Pacers being unable to answer him defensively.

He exploded for 25 first-half points to help give the Celtics a halftime lead, 10 of which came during a 20-0 Celtics run in the second quarter. He finished the night with 40 points on 14-27 shooting, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal, and shot 8-11 from the line.

“[He’s] just making the right play,” Joe Mazzulla said of Brown’s stellar performance. “Poise. Patience. Discipline. Proper actions, getting the right spacing, and picking and choosing his spots really well, whether it was in transition or in the half-court. So, [he] just continues to get better and better. He takes a lot of pride in his ability to impact games in different ways, and I thought he did that tonight.”

Game 2 is the latest masterpiece in Jaylen Brown’s career-best postseason

In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Brown was the hero, hitting the game-tying three-pointer just moments after making the game-saving deflection.

And across 12 games this postseason — through which the Celtics are 10-2 — he’s averaging 24.8 points on 54.4% shooting. Both of these are improvements from his already-impressive regular season numbers — 23 points on 49.9% shooting.

“He has it going,” Jrue Holiday said after the Game 2 win. “Y’all see what I see. Great player, great leader, but wants to win and takes things into his own hands. Having a guy like that on my side, I love it. I’ll ride for him, and whatever I can do to obviously get that win is needed. The way JB has been playing, man, it’s outstanding.”

Brown was left off All-NBA in favor of guys like Lebron James, Devin Booker, and Domantas Sabonis – all of whose seasons ended weeks ago. He made clear in his postgame presser that he’s not focused on that accolade as the Celtics make a run toward a championship, but he also acknowledged that he feels underrated league-wide.

“I watch guys get praised and anointed who I feel like are half as talented as me on either side of the ball,” Brown said, without specifying names. “But at this point in my life, I just embrace it. It comes with being who I am and what I stand for, and I ain’t really changing that.”

Multiple Celtics criticized Jaylen Brown’s All-NBA omission

At shootaround yesterday morning, Payton Pritchard was incredulous that Brown didn’t make the team.

“That was a snub for sure,” he said. “I don’t understand how you can be the number one team by a large margin and only have one guy on that. JB’s been terrific all year, two-way player, so he definitely deserves to be on there.”

Jayson Tatum, who was named to First Team All-NBA himself, said the two hadn’t discussed All-NBA at shootaround but did note: “We all felt like internally that he should’ve made one of the All-NBA teams, so it was a shame to see that he didn’t.”

Joe Mazzulla, who called Brown one of his ‘favorite people’ after the win, said that Brown doesn’t prioritize accolades, but did allude to the omission potentially serving as a source of motivation.

“I think he cares about it in a way that motivates him, and I think he doesn’t really care about it at all because he understands that winning is the most important thing,” Joe Mazzulla said. “And so he has an innate ability to just get there, work hard, motivation. He has unreal confidence, but he’s also not afraid to work on the things that he knows he has to get better at.”

“You see him every day at shootaround or practice. He’s out there with six, seven coaches working on every possession, every spacing imaginable so that he sees his reads. He just cares about the right stuff. But you know, I honestly, I think stuff like that does motivate him, but I know he also really wants to win. He has a growth mindset, wants to get better. So I’ve really enjoyed coaching him and really watching him work.”

Oshae Brissett, who played his first real postseason minutes as a Celtic, echoed the sentiment that Jaylen Brown was snubbed: “I don’t know if he’s talking like this but I’ll talk like this for him. He should have been on one of those teams.”

Ultimately, Jaylen Brown was named to the All-NBA the year it mattered most for him — last season, when his eligibility for a super-max contract would be determined by award voting.

And he made one thing clear postgame: All-NBA is an afterthought en route to an NBA championship.