Jaylen Brown has spent the opening weeks of the season describing the Sixers as a work in progress.<\/p>\n
He offered a similarly humble perspective Monday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena. His performance, however, provided the clearest look yet at how he can influence this group while sharing the floor with the club\u2019s other established stars.<\/p>\n
Brown finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds and five assists in the Sixers\u2019 126-107 win over the Chicago Bulls. He shot 9 for 15 from the field, made four three-pointers and did not commit a turnover.<\/p>\n
Five of his rebounds came on the offensive end, an area Brown has emphasized while the Sixers continue piecing together their frontcourt rotation.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a mindset,\u201d Brown said. \u201cJust trying to create extra opportunities for my team. As we\u2019re trying to patch together our fives and our front line, I try to make an extra contribution and emphasis on the glass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown has also been careful about how he describes his place on a roster that already belonged to Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey.<\/p>\n
Maxey scored 15 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter Monday, continuing his torrid start to the season. He has led the Sixers in scoring while being the only starter to appear in all eight games.<\/p>\n
Brown is not interested in interrupting that.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaxey\u2019s been leading the way, 100 percent,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe\u2019s been here. This is his team. Him and Joel have been here for a while, so the mindset has been to complement those guys. I\u2019m finding my footing, but Maxey has been leading the way for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s footing looked firm against Chicago.<\/p>\n
Beyond his scoring, he helped the Sixers control the glass, moved the ball within an offense that generated 23 assists during the first half and supplied the physicality Nick Nurse expects from him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dude is tough and he wins,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cI\u2019ll take that all day long. The degree of difficulty on some of the shots he hit was really amazing. I thought he pounded the glass and got some key rebounds. Makes a lot of winning plays. Man, he\u2019s a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown spent the first 10 years of his career in Boston. He won a championship there, reached another NBA Finals and grew from a 20-year-old prospect into one of the league\u2019s premier two-way wings.<\/p>\n
Moving into a new system alongside James, Embiid and Maxey was never going to be seamless.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, he\u2019s fitting in along with all of us,\u201d James said. \u201cWe\u2019re getting better and better. It\u2019s not going to happen overnight. He spent his first 10 years in a system in Boston, in the city, so it\u2019s going to take some adjustment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes adjustment for him. It\u2019s going to take adjustment for the rest of the guys that joined this franchise as well. But tonight was a great step.\u201d<\/p>\n
James pointed to Brown\u2019s \u201cpressure, his shot-making ability, his rebounding ability\u201d and his professionalism.<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s early influence has extended beyond his production.<\/p>\n
The Sixers entered Monday with one of the NBA\u2019s best half-court defenses. Brown has been one of the group\u2019s most persistent voices, stressing communication, preparation and attention to opposing players\u2019 tendencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the part that I care about the most as a group, not individually,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHaving a mentality night in and night out, respecting your opponent, respecting the game, making sure that we are executing our coverages, we\u2019re being clear in our communication and then we\u2019re also taking away tendencies on a night-to-night basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose things I just explained are over 50 percent of the battle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown understands that maintaining those details across an 82-game schedule will require more than reminders.<\/p>\n
\u201cA little bit of accountability,\u201d he said. \u201cYou learn different guys require different things. How you communicate with each guy may be a little different, but accountability for sure and confrontation if need be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe offense is going to be what it\u2019s going to be, but our defense has got to be non-negotiable. That\u2019s something I say all the time. Non-negotiable. You want to be a good team, defense is non-negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sixers showed both sides of their defensive potential Monday.<\/p>\n
They built a double-digit lead during the first half, allowed Chicago to score 36 points in the second quarter and then created separation after halftime. Philadelphia held the Bulls to 20 points in the third quarter before pulling away in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Brown did not celebrate their ability to raise their intensity after it slipped.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like that we have that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s good that we have shown the potential, but we\u2019ve got to keep that switch on. It doesn\u2019t work like that where you just flip the switch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can catch up to us and it can bite us against a better team or on a night that we\u2019re not being as crisp on offense. It can\u2019t be a switch just because we\u2019re playing a lesser opponent or whatever the case may be. We\u2019ve got to make sure that mentality is from the beginning to end. Can\u2019t skip any steps.\u201d<\/p>\n
That urgency accompanies considerable optimism.<\/p>\n
Brown said the Sixers enjoy playing together. He loves when James grabs a rebound because \u201che\u2019s like a quarterback,\u201d capable of launching an outlet pass or immediately pushing the pace.<\/p>\n
The group is learning when to attack, when to move the ball and how to avoid hesitating in its effort to play unselfishly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of talent, man,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe like each other, and we\u2019re just kind of building that chemistry of how we can get this thing to a well-oiled machine. I think we\u2019re taking steps forward every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sixers are 7-1 despite Brown believing those steps remain incomplete. They have won close games, erased sizable deficits and received important contributions from different players.<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s performance Monday showed another version of how their pieces can fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have a long way to go to being a really, really solid, great team,\u201d Brown said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve been able to win some games. We started out the season great, 7-1, and you haven\u2019t seen our best version yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a good sign.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jaylen Brown has spent the opening weeks of the season describing the Sixers as a work in progress.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,10794],"class_list":["post-320577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-sixers-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}