Cal Basketball: Jaylen Brown Continues to Blossom in the Playoffs for the Celtics

The former one-and-done Golden Bear has scored at least 20 points in 7 straight postseason games.

Jaylen Brown was all rough edges and tantalizing potential during his one season at Cal back in 2015-16.

His game was not developed. He couldn’t shoot from the perimeter. He didn’t yet understand how to consistently assert himself offensively. He showed only glimpses of the defensive aptitude that is now evident.

He was a kid, and we shouldn’t have expected more. But at Cal, where Jason Kidd was a ferocious buzzsaw as a freshman and Shareef Abdur-Rahim an effortless scorer right out of the gate, Brown gave us only glimpses of what he would become while averaging 14.6 points.

His athleticism — quickness, jumping ability and change-of-direction skills — were there. So was his intellect. Remember, the guy took a graduate class as a freshman after receiving a special approval from a dean to enroll.

Brown’s farewell game at Cal was a haphazard 77-66 loss to Hawaii in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Brown was no factor, scoring just four points on 1-for-6 shooting.

Now in his sixth NBA season but still just 25 years old, Brown is an NBA star. He averaged better than 20 points this season for the third straight year, and his value to the Boston Celtics has never been more obvious.

Jaylen Brown / Photo by David Butler II, USA Today

He averaged 27.1 points over the final 12 regular-season games, and he was the key player late in both of Boston’s wins over the Brooklyn Nets as the playoffs unfolded.

There are four elite-level offensive players in this opening-round series, but in Game 2 on Wednesday at Boston, the Nets’ tandem of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving shot a combined 8 for 30 with eight turnovers. Brown’s partner, Jayson Tatum, dished out a game-high 10 assists but he also had trouble finding the basket, shooting 5 for 16.

Brown, meanwhile, was 9 for 18 and scored 22 points, to go with his own playoff-career-high six assists.

Most importantly, he scored 10 points in a span of 2 minutes, 58 seconds of the fourth quarter, transforming a 92-87 deficit into a 99-94 lead. In other words, the Celtics went 12-2 on the Nets, and Brown had 10 of them.

In Game 1 on Sunday, Brown saved nine of his 23 points for the fourth quarter before Tatum’s game-winner.

Through two games, he is averaging 22.5 points (9.5 in the fourth quarter), 4.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 3.5 steals.

Brown missed last year’s postseason after undergoing left wrist surgery, but he has scored at least 20 points in seven straight playoff games dating back to 2020, averaging 23.9 points on 55-percent shooting and 42.5 percent from the 3-point arc in those games.

“We know JB is going to find a way,” Celtics forward Grant Williams told Christopher L. Gasper of the Boston Globe. “He’s one of those guys. He’s uplifting.

“We know that JB, no matter if he’s turning the ball over or missing a couple of shots, he’s going to find the right wave. It’s going to revert back to the mean.

“He’s one of those guys that we can always rely on, him and Jayson and (Marcus) Smart. All three of them have really done a great job of leading us this year.”

Said Tatum, “It makes the world of difference having Jaylen Brown as opposed to not having him like last year.”

Gasper in his column writes about fans and talk-show hosts who wanted to trade Brown for a veteran when the Celtics were scuffling through the first half of the season.

Here he explains the value Brown brings to the equation:

Brown has cemented his status as a building block, not a stumbling block, in the Celtics’ pursuit of Banner No. 18.

And on a team with the volatile Smart and the soft-spoken Tatum, he has become the emotional ballast, a connector between role players like Williams and Payton Pritchard and the rarefied air of NBA stardom.

He has experience with and appreciation for both roles. In a league where perspective, selflessness, and self-awareness aren’t always in supply, Brown exudes them.

Brown stressed that the Celtics’ edge in the series isn’t the solely the result of two or three players. Afterward, he called Williams and Pritchard “the heroes of the game,” downplaying his own significant role.

“We’ve got to keep winning as a team,” Brown said. “It’s not me and Jayson. It’s not me Jayson and Smart. It’s the Celtics.”

Game 3 is Saturday at 4:30 p.m. PT on ESPN.

Cover photo of Jaylen Brown by Winslow Townson, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo