The Boston Celtics will have star forward Jaylen Brown available for the team's first game of the 2025-26 NBA season. Brown has been declared ready to go against the Philadelphia 76ers at TD Garden in Beantown by the team, according to Daniel Donabedian of ClutchPoints.
Brown's availability for the 76ers game was considered a game-time call, but he is now expected to lead the Celtics on the floor against their Atlantic Division rivals.
The Celtics are without the other half of their superstar tandem, with Jayson Tatum widely expected to miss the entire 2025-26 campaign, as he continues to recuperate from a devastating Achilles injury.
Meanwhile, Brown will be running alongside the likes of Derrick White, Anfernee Simons, Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard for Boston, which is coming off a 61-21 season and a second-round exit from the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
Apart from Tatum, all Celtics players are available against the 76ers, who lost the regular-season series last season against Boston.
The Celtics defeated Philadelphia three times in four meetings in the 2024-25 NBA campaign, with Brown playing in three of those contests. He averaged 21.3 points on a 49.1 percent shooting from the field and 36.8 percent success rate from behind the arc, 7.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.0 steals.
Given the absence of Tatum, Brown will have a bigger usage this season for Boston, which is looking to prove that it can continue being a serious NBA title contender despite missing the former Duke Blue Devils star.
Overall in 2024-25, Brown put up averages of 22.2 points with a 51.5 effective field goal percentage, 5.8 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.2 steals in 63 games for the Celtics, who ended up behind the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference standings for the No. 2 seed.
It is a big challenge for Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla to keep Boston among the chief contenders for the NBA crown even without Tatum, but with Brown, they have at least a genuine star to rely on day in and day out, provided, of course, that he's healthy.
