The final words surrounding Boston’s nail-biting overtime win over the Toronto Raptors will inevitably be saved for the game-winning shot that released off of Jayson Tatum’s hands as time expired. After all, it saved the Celtics from a home defeat to a lowly Raptors team still searching for their first road win of the season.
Those words may even feature the moments before that final shot, when Raptors guard Davion Mitchell did his best Matthew Knies impression by backchecking Jaylen Brown out of his action, an move that went uncalled and left Tatum to deliver the final blow all on his own.
Perhaps lost in the fray of that chaotic final sequence was Brown’s incredible clutch time performance, which helped lift the Celtics past a scrappy conference bottom-dweller.
In clutch minutes, which includes overtime, Brown finished with 6 points on 2-of-3 shooting, one major assist to Neemias Queta in the final minute of regulation, and a block on RJ Barrett that kept the game tied.
In those minutes over the course of this season, Brown has done well to elevate his game, posting shooting splits of 60/80/37 in five games to go with a +2.6 on/off differential. Compared to the larger sample of last year’s regular season, it’s a nice start. Brown shot splits of 50/20/68 in 29 games that saw clutch time last year, with a still-positive +1.6 and a 17-12 record.
His performance against Toronto was his finest hour; however, starting with his last-minute feed to Queta to tie the game with 42.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
On this play, a zoom action gets Brown working off a handoff with a rolling Queta, with Brown’s primary defender Mitchell a step behind after taking contact on Derrick White’s screen. It allows Brown to set up shop, pulling out a crossover that commentator Mark Jones once said was “so deep in his bag like the fries are at the bottom.” Jakob Poeltl simply has to contest a Brown drive in this situation, and JB preys on it, dropping off to Queta for an easier bucket to tie up the game.
On the very next possession, right out of a timeout, Brown added to his All-Defensive Team case.
The Raptors wisely cleared out of the paint for this possession, stretching the Celtics out to the perimeter to allow Barrett the space to pick up a head of steam directly to the cup. With Queta playing at the level on Poeltl’s back screen, Brown funnels the play to the right side, playing from behind and timing his contest perfectly in a way that’d make Derrick White proud.
On the opening possession of overtime, it’s Brown’s shooting that gets things rolling. A double-screen again ends with Mitchell discombobulated thanks to solid work from Luke Kornet. Brown has space to fire off a stepback, and right from the jump, the Celtics are ahead.
Later on, there was Brown’s huge go-ahead three with 1:09 remaining. On this sequence, a lot of the credit goes to Jayson Tatum. It’s a classic Celtics possession thanks to Tatum’s ability to work his way into a tightly-guarded paint, opening up the floor with an acrobatic kickout to Al Horford, which leaves the extra pass over to Brown in the corner.
It may not have been Pascal Siakam-level defense like we saw in the conference finals, but it was still a hand in his face from a talented perimeter defender in Ochai Agbaji. Not a problem for Brown, who confidently sinks the shot to give his team a 2-point lead entering the final minute of play.
On a night where the Celtics struggled to hit open looks, gave up 76 points in the paint, and allowed career highlights for Barrett (first career triple-double) and Poeltl (career-high 33 points), it wouldn’t have been a complete surprise to see the Celtics fall short in a clutch game for the fourth time this season. The stars shined brightest at the end though, with Tatum delivering a new shot to his career highlight reel and Brown making an impact in all phases of the game to push the Celtics to an 11-3 record.
