119-109 win<\/a> over Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder. He took the stripe a lot \u2014 a game-high 14 times in total \u2014 en route to 31 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists, outperforming the NBA\u2019s returning regular-season and Finals MVP.<\/p>\nBrown even beat Gilgeous-Alexander at his own game, baiting him into a foul \u2014 and the bucket \u2014\u00a0midway through the fourth quarter. Brown was all smiles; all SGA could do was shake his head. He has, after all, made a nice living out of forcing opponents into compromising positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess that was a little payback,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n
Of course, Brown has a Finals MVP award of his own. He also made an All-NBA Second Team as Jayson Tatum\u2019s co-star in 2023. We knew he was good. Just didn\u2019t know he was this good. In the absence of Tatum, who ruptured his right Achilles last May, Brown kept the Celtics in the hunt, performing at a level that warrants his consideration on ballots for MVP and All-NBA First Team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all knew he could do it,\u201d said Tatum.<\/p>\n
Not like this. We figured him for a second option on a title team, because we have seen him do it before in 2024, but after Wednesday\u2019s convincing win over the Thunder we have to ask: Can Jaylen Brown be the best player on a team that wins the championship this season?<\/p>\n
Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was in the building, but the MVP chants were not for him. They rained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,2066,7235,7321,7228,7896,11473,5851,4620,590,7210,3906,253209,5674,12841,85,11898,12838,7897],"class_list":{"0":"post-570780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-chicago-bulls","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-eastern-conference","13":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","14":"tag-lebron-james","15":"tag-luka-doncic","16":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","17":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","20":"tag-nikola-jokic","21":"tag-postseason-awards","22":"tag-sacramento-kings","23":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-utah-jazz","26":"tag-victor-wembanyama","27":"tag-western-conference"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}