Jaylen Brown provides an update on his knee after the C’s loss to Miami, revealing he was in some pain
Jaylen Brown scored a team-high 24 points in the Boston Celtics' loss to the Miami Heat on Wednesday. But the right knee injury that kept him out of six of Boston's previous 13 games clearly is still impacting him.
"I was in some pain today," Brown told reporters after Wednesday's game at TD Garden. "But you know, just pushing through it, trying to find ways to still be aggressive and add value to the team and stuff like that. Just something I gotta work through and manage."
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Brown looked visibly hobbled at times during Wednesday's game yet still hit 10 of his 20 shots to go along with nine rebounds and four assists. The Celtics star suggested the ailment -- which the team has described as a "right knee posterior impingement" -- will simply need to be managed on a nightly basis.
"It's a good step forward," Brown said of playing with the injury. "I've had to come to grips that every night I'm not gonna feel my normal self, but that doesn't mean I still can't make plays and things like that. So, it's just something that we are working through. Today was a good step forward."
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Brown has played in 60 games this season, and he'd need to play in at least five of the Celtics' final six regular-season games to hit the 65-game threshold of eligibility for awards like All-NBA and Defensive Player of the Year.
Brown insisted that threshold has zero impact on his decision to play or not play, and that his goal is to be in a good place health-wise when the playoffs begin.
"I’ve got some stuff lined up with the medical staff in order to feel better come playoffs," Brown said. "But for now, just mentally working through not feeling great, but still (being) able to find ways to be effective.
"... I've seen some specialists and stuff like that, but we've got a great medical staff, and we've got good people around. Come playoffs, my goal is to be feeling my best, so we're just working through that.
"It's a thing that we kind of manage and push through, but we've got a good plan in place."
With the Eastern Conference's No. 2 seed essentially locked up, Celtics fans probably wouldn't hate to see Brown take a few games off down the stretch, even if it disqualifies him from making All-NBA. The C's will have about a week off between the end of the regular season and the first round as they await the winner of the NBA play-in tournament, however, so Brown will at least have that time to make sure his knee is right for the postseason.
Boston's next game is Friday night at TD Garden against the Phoenix Suns at 7:30 p.m. ET.
