The Boston Celtics were feeling good about themselves having won two straight games in their second round series of the NBA Playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers. They had struck first on the Sixers homecourt and had taken control with a 2-1 series lead. But they dropped Game 4 in heartbreaking fashion, giving up a three-point shot to James Harden after leading by two in the final seconds. Not only that, the Celtics had a shot to win the game but Marcus Smart's three-pointer was ruled after the buzzer. It didn't help though that Jaylen Brown had a quiet fourth quarter. He took only three shots in the final 17 minutes of play. After the game, Brown explained what happened.
"I guess I got to demand the ball a little bit more."
Jaylen Brown speaks on only taking three shots in the last 17 minutes of Game 4.pic.twitter.com/rvn7RsRDtQ
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) May 7, 2023
“I guess I got to demand the ball a little bit more,” Brown said. “I think good things happened when I had it in my hands, but I thought our offense was okay. I thought we chipped away, we made big time shots, we got great looks all game long. We just came up short in the end.”




Jaylen Brown has actually been one of the most clutch players in the NBA this season. Game 4 was most likely a case of just letting the offense flow rather than some kind of warning as to what may lie ahead in terms of Brown's crunch time performance in the NBA Playoffs.
Throughout the playoffs, Brown has been averaging 25.7 points per game, 5.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.2 steals with shooting splits of 54.5 percent from the field, 48.9 percent from the three-point line and 76.5 percent from the free-throw line.