Jaylen Brown has by no means had an issue with athleticism. He entered the NBA as a tantalizing mix of uncooked fast twitch muscle, leaping capacity, and energy. A unfastened deal with and a paucity of contact restricted Brown’s capacity to completely leverage his lightning fast first step and explosiveness headed in the direction of the basket in his first a number of years within the league.
Brown made simply 58 p.c of his photographs on the rim in his first two seasons with the Boston Celtics, per Cleansing the Glass, rating him within the 42nd and 33rd percentile league-wide in consecutive campaigns, however Boston’s precocious younger wing has constructed out his sport over the past 4 years. Brown now has a deep bag of dribble strikes and finishes deftly with each palms.
He ended the present season taking pictures a strong 71 p.c on the rim, leaping him up into the 82nd percentile as in comparison with his positional friends. He’s been even higher within the Celtics’ first-round matchup with the Brooklyn Nets.
Brown has made 76 p.c of his photographs by the basket in opposition to Brooklyn, even though he’s drastically elevated the full proportion of his photographs coming close to the ring from 30 p.c to 42 p.c, per Cleansing the Glass.
The Nets don’t have any good options.
The perfect path to holding Brown from scoring within the paint is to maintain him from getting there within the first place. The Nets don’t have anybody with the suitable mix of dimension and velocity to have a lot hope in that regard. Kyrie Irving, Seth Curry, Goran Dragic, and Patty Mills all may as effectively be site visitors cones.
The one participant who may stand an opportunity, Bruce Brown, is often coping with Jayson Tatum. That’s left Brown with loads of time to feast on the basket, the place Brooklyn’s bigs can provide solely common safety at finest. He’s slithered round outstretched palms with ease, and powered by way of contact when the Nets have risked placing their our bodies in his manner.
Brown’s 6.3 made discipline targets per sport inside 5 ft aren’t simply the perfect of anybody within the collection, however the third highest mark in your complete NBA Playoffs. He trails solely Giannis Antetokounmpo (8.0) and Jimmy Butler (7.0).
Brown’s effectiveness on the basket has buoyed his total effectivity regardless of a stretch of chilly three-point taking pictures. He’s benefited considerably from Boston’s matchup and the eye that Tatum consistently attracts, however that’s all the time been the imaginative and prescient of the duo. Tatum was born to be the main scorer, whereas Brown ravages opponents’ much less proficient particular person defenders together with his athleticism, every producing oodles of environment friendly appears.
Each have made monumental enhancements of their video games to develop into the terrifying tandem they’re as we speak. Brown’s capacity to attain effectively on the basket was a significant milestone in that course of, and it’s paying huge dividends up to now this postseason.
