After missing out on All-NBA honors, Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown earned the first individual award of his career after they swept the Indiana Pacers and booked their ticket to their second NBA Finals in three years.
Brown was named the Eastern Conference Finals MVP and in Game 4, he came up with big plays both offensively and defensively down the stretch to help secure the finals berth for Boston.
Much like the Celtics, for some reason, don’t get credit for the special season they have had so far, Brown doesn’t get a lot of love for being one of the best players in the NBA
. Yet, the 27-year-old has been a consistent force all year long for Boston on both ends of the floor. During the post-game press conference, Brown made quite a confident declaration about where he stands in the NBA.
“I think I’m one of the best two-way wings in this game. I thought this year I’ve taken a level and I’ve increased it. I took the matchup. I picked up guys full court. I’ve chased guys off screens. I’ve battled with bigs. I felt I should have been All-Defensive. And that probably hurt me the most because that’s one of the things that I set out in this season that I wanted to be… I like to set my hat on just being a versatile two-way wing and can do both at any point in time and the last four minutes of this game… you saw that.” – Jaylen Brown
Despite being overlooked most of the time, Brown does not seem to care. Nonetheless, he certainly deserves more recognition than he is getting. Just last week, Brown wasn’t named to any of the three All-NBA teams despite helping lead the Celtics to the best record in the NBA.
But on Monday night, he finally got his due after he proved himself on the bigger stage, where he led the Celtics in their sweep of the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Jaylen Brown Earns Eastern Conference Finals MVP
Brown came up with huge plays on both ends in Game 4
As he alluded to in his post-game comments, Brown had a hand in perhaps making the two biggest plays in Game 4 that sent the Celtics to the Finals. With the game still tied with a little over a minute remaining, Brown came up with a huge chase down block on Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard.
Immediately on the other end, the Celtics forward was able to draw in the Pacers defense and found an open Derrick White in the corner for the game-winning three-pointer to clinch the conference for Boston.
| Jaylen Brown Stats – Eastern Conference Finals | |
|---|---|
| Category | Stats |
| PPG | 29.8 |
| RPG | 5.0 |
| APG | 3.0 |
| FG% | 51.7% |
| 3P% | 37.0% |
Needless to say, Brown had a terrific Eastern Conference Finals series against the Pacers. His new hardware alone is enough to prove it. He led the team in scoring, averaging 29.8 points per game on nearly 52 percent field goal shooting.
Brown and the Celtics now await the winner of the Western Conference Finals, where the Dallas Mavericks hold a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
