BOSTON — Jaylen Brown was front and center for the Celtics\u2019 comeback win over the Pacers in the fourth quarter on Monday night. However, the team began their rally in the third quarter with Brown and his fellow starters on the bench. Joe Mazzulla pulled the entire usual starting group with 9:02 remaining in the third quarter after the Pacers pushed their lead to a game-high 20 points. <\/p>\n
Boston\u2019s reserves used a 19-5 run to climb back into the game before Brown returned to the floor with one minute remaining in the third quarter. After the win, Brown gave his candid reaction to the rare benching by his head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I was pissed,\u201d Brown said. \u201cYou know what I mean? I was ready to play so I didn\u2019t know. It felt like we were mailing it in. It was only three minutes in (to the third quarter), but we trust our coaching staff. So it was the right decision. That second group is the reason why we won the game. Garza, Sam, Hugo. We won tonight, but it was because of those guys. So it was a great call by Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once Brown came back in the game, he was able to maintain the momentum from Boston\u2019s reserves. The All-Star scored 14 of his game-high 31 points in the fourth quarter to help the hosts complete the rally for their third straight win. The response by Brown once he reentered the game was not surprising for Mazzulla. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe knew we weren\u2019t playing at our best, I thought he responded great,\u201d Mazzulla said of Brown. \u201cI thought when it was his time, and that\u2019s what I told him. I said, \u2018This is what you\u2019re supposed to do.\u2019 I mean, it\u2019s an 8- to 12-point game, like we have to earn these wins. We have to earn this opportunity to develop the mental toughness that it takes to try to compete at a high level, and he\u2019s been doing that for us the entire season, and the efficiency in the offense is one thing, but he does it defensively for us as well, and I think he\u2019s just playing great basketball for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown has now scored 30 or more points in seven straight games for the Celtics, helping them rise to an unexpected No. 3 spot in the Eastern Conference over the past month. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think this has been my favorite season so far, being able to get an opportunity to lead a group,\u201d Brown said. \u201cA group of guys who … Some of us, we have some championship experience, but we have five or six new guys who haven\u2019t really played NBA basketball. And now we look like one of the better teams in the league. And that\u2019s just credit to our coaching staff and credit to our leadership that we\u2019ve been able to get those guys comfortable. And we\u2019re playing some good basketball right now, so it means everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Celtics and Brown will look to extend their winning streak to four when they face off against the Pacers in a rematch on Friday in Indiana. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON — Jaylen Brown was front and center for the Celtics\u2019 comeback win over the Pacers in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-363766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}