Jaylen Brown reacted in disbelief to the NBA’s announcement that Knicks guard Jalen Brunson was selected as Eastern Conference Player of the Month for December, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe relays in a subscriber-only piece. The Celtics star responded to the Twitter post with “Smh,” which is online shorthand for “shaking my head.”
Himmelsbach points out that Brown had better numbers during the month than Brunson, and the teams finished with similar records as Boston went 9-3 and New York was 10-4. However, the Knicks captured the NBA Cup, which may have tilted the race in Brunson’s favor.
Brown also lamented that so much of the discourse surrounding the game, especially in the media, is focused on offense. He argues that his overall value should be considered in awards balloting.
“On any given night I can pick up guys full court,” he said. “I guard a (power forward), I can guard a (small forward), I can guard a (shooting guard). And I’ve guarded (point guards), so being able to be versatile on offense but also versatile on defense. There’s not a lot of guys who are the top of our league who can do that, who is capable of even doing that. And night to night, it’s difficult.
“Any given night I can take over a game, defensively, and take over a game, offensively. We don’t measure the game like that. It’s however many points you score, how many threes you hit. I guess that’s how good you are. I think a real impact on the game of basketball is if you can dominate on both offense and defense and, any given night, I think I can do both.”
There’s more on the Celtics:
- Improved bench play may change the team’s outlook heading into the trade deadline, suggests Brian Robb of MassLive. Coach Joe Mazzulla relied heavily on his starters early in the season, but lately he’s been getting production throughout the lineup. Robb points out that Luka Garza, Sam Hauser and Anfernee Simons all scored in double figures off the bench in Thursday’s win at Sacramento, while fellow reserve Hugo Gonzalez led the team with a +20 net rating.
- The bench production resulted in a five-minute night for Jordan Walsh, who started the game but didn’t return after being subbed out, notes Souichi Terada of MassLive. Walsh has played well since assuming a starting role, and Mazzulla emphasized that he didn’t do anything wrong. “It’s just we can go to so many different things,” Mazzulla said. “I think you saw what Sam was able to do in the first half. Coming out of halftime and making a change I think can throw a team off to start a game. … It’s really just taking any advantage we can with the entire roster that we have, and just trying to win segments of the game and kind of go runs and catch opponents off-guard with different matchups and different opportunities there.”
- In a mailbag column, Robb speculates that the Celtics won’t fill their open roster spot until very late in the regular season. He adds that the move will be determined by injuries or need. If they’re short on big men, Robb sees two-way player Amari Williams as the favorite if the team decides to promote from within. Otherwise, it could be Ron Harper Jr., who already has three years of NBA experience.
Jaylen is right tho…smh (along with him)
Brown is right. Brunson is a defensive liability. Brown deserved it and is a major reason Celts are over-performing.
It’s time for these conversations to be more prevalent in basketball circles. The “offense only” mindset is the biggest reason that youth basketball looks the way it looks, these days.
Stop star calls.
Doesn’t Brunson guard everyone’s best player? Him and KAT are always put in the action because they are so awful at defense lmao
But hasn’t this been the case for awards since forever? That’s how it works. Notice they don’t give an “offensive player of the year” award because that’s the MVP.
Personally I would say that Jalen Johnson was clearly the best player in the EC, not Brown or Brunson.
One of the most unlikable people across all sports. Focus on your team, Jaylen, and not crying about a player of the month award lmfao. Just shows how he isn’t actually a great player, because no great players would give a crap about a divisional player of the month award
I had the exact same reaction – why would Jaylen Brown even give a crap about a player of the month award? He’s a great player on a max contract – I think anyone who knows basketball knows how important he is to the Celtics, and the fact that he didn’t win some random in-season award doesn’t change that one way or the other.
Doesn’t really bother me. If that is the chip he puts on his shoulder then great. At the end of the day he plays team ball, so I m not ganna get too wound up about his comments to the beat reporter.
You know who got mega-robbed of multiple awards, most notably the 2015 FMVP award, and says nothing about any of it?
I miss it when Jaylen Brown wasnt trying so hard to be seen, this dude is doing live streams making corny jokes and going on rants about PLAYER OF THE MONTH.
He is playing his best basketball ever, but it is sad his ego got the best of him. As corny as Tatum was, he never acted like this pushing for people to like and vote for him.
it’s nice to be recognized and i’m still voting for him as an all-star, but his comments come off as a bit whiny
Yup. The fact that he’s seemingly always complaining about being overlooked is tiresome. Part of me gets it as an athlete/competitor, but at some point it’s like let it go bro. We’d all be miserable if we fixated on all of the things that don’t make sense in this world (and which we already knew didn’t make sense).
On the other hand, I’m sure said ego acts as fuel for him to continuously improve, so whatever floats your boat.