Jason Kidd: Jaylen Brown is Celtics’ ‘best player’

Jason Kidd: Jaylen Brown is Celtics’ ‘best player’

The Dallas Mavericks dropped Game 1 of the 2024 NBA Finals by 18 points–107-89–against the Boston Celtics Thursday.

Roughly 36 hours after the beatdown, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd had some high praise for Jaylen Brown ahead of Game 2.

“Jaylen’s their best player,” Kidd told reporters on Saturday. “Looking at what he does defensively, he picked up Luka full court, got to the free throw line, he did everything and that’s what your best player does.”

Brown, who won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP in a 5-4 vote over Jayson Tatum as a result of sweeping Indiana, was definitely one of the Celtics’ most effective players Thursday. He scored a team-high 22 points with six rebounds, two assists, three steals and three blocks. He shot 7-of-12 from the floor and 2-of-6 from 3-point range.

Brown did defend Doncic for the majority of the evening; Boston’s defense, collectively, made it difficult for Dallas to create advantages by not being forced into rotation. I thought Jrue Holiday did arguably the best job on Doncic in the second half, but had a pair of hallmark steals at halfcourt on Doncic in the first and second quarters.

Regardless, there’s the possibility that Kidd was trying to create a headline and get it into the Celtics’ players’ heads by possibly trying to divide them.

Brown and Tatum have been teammates for too long and have gone through too many battles together to be swayed by this, though it is a talking point among media heads–especially recently, in lieu of Brown winning the ECF MVP.

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The gap between Tatum and Brown isn’t drastic. The latter is having the best defensive season of his career and had one of the most impactful seasons of his career in 2023-24.

He’s shown the fire of wanting to prove naysayers about his $300 million supermax–which doesn’t kick in until 2024-25–wrong. He also dropped 40 points on the Pacers’ heads the same day that it was announced that he didn’t make any All-NBA team.

Brown wasn’t happy about that, either–nor should he be!

All in all, let’s appreciate two very good basketball players! Is that too much to ask?

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