Jaylen Brown and the rest of the Boston Celtics found themselves on the losing end of their first scrimmage, dropping a 98-84 match against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday.
The 6-foot-6 swingman admitted that rust played a big factor in their letdown.
Jaylen Brown's on takeaways from scrimmage: "Our conditioning. We aren't in as good of shape as we thought we were."
— Brian Robb (@BrianTRobb) July 24, 2020
Jaylen Brown pitched in nine markers in 16 minutes in the first half before sitting out the final two quarters with the rest of the Celtics starters. He shot 50 percent from the field, going 3-for-6 from the field.
“I think first, we’re just worried about ourselves getting better each and every day and just focusing on what’s important for us,” the Celtics youngster added, via Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald.
“I feel like when we do our job and play to the level that we play at, at our peak, I don’t think there’s a team in the league that can stop us,” he said. “We just need to focus on us and get better. And we don’t have a lot of time to do it either. We have a short amount of time to get to the peak, to our level we want to get at. And we have to do what it takes to get there.”
Boston appeared rusty from the get-go, allowing Thunder guards Chris Paul and Shai Gilgeuous-Alexander to set-up the tempo early on. They also had no answer to OKC's big Steven Adams, who scored 17 points in the first half alone.
While this tune-up loss won't appear on their record this season, it serves as a nice wake-up call for the rest of Brad Steven's wards. The Celtics currently occupy the third-best record in the East (43-21) and still have a shot of climbing higher once the season resumes on July 30.
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