The Boston Celtics' Monday night 117-101 win over the Philadelphia 76ers at home must have given Celtics forward Jaylen Brown a bittersweet feeling. While it was nice to see his Celtics strike first in the series, him watching helplessly from the sidelines because of a hamstring issue was not the way Brown envisioned he’d begin the series.

Brown wanted to play through the injury but was ultimately ruled out by the Celtics, who wanted to be sure that the swingman is 100 percent okay before sending him back into action.

Al Horford also helped Brown understand the situation by talking to the versatile guard/forward just before the Sixers game, per Joshua Schrock of NESN,

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“One of the things, when I talked to him I said, ‘hey, we obviously really need you out there, but we need you for the long run. We need you to be healthy and to feel good. We don’t want you to come back tonight and reaggravate and be out for a long period of time.’ Hopefully, now he has a couple days to recover and he’ll be back Thursday.”

Even without Brown’s presence, the Celtics were able to flummox Philly on offense and on defense. Boston made over 48 percent of their shots while holding the Sixers to only 42.2 percent from the field. The Celtics were also able to limit Sixers guard Ben Simmons’ impact, as the rookie turned the ball over seven times.

Philadelphia and Boston will lock horns anew this coming Thursday at TD Garden with Brown’s status currently being treated as day-to-day despite him proclaiming that he'll play in Game 2.