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Celtics’ Jaylen Brown delivers blunt takeaway from brutal Nets loss
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- Celtics’ Jaylen Brown delivers blunt takeaway from brutal Nets loss
The post Celtics' Jaylen Brown delivers blunt takeaway from brutal Nets loss appeared first on ClutchPoints .
BOSTON — Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown doesn't really sugarcoat things. Even before his now 10-season NBA career, he was never apt to water down the truth in the hopes of appeasing others. And following a 113-105 loss at the hands of the struggling Brooklyn Nets on Friday night, Brown let his blunt (but honest) thoughts about the disappointing defeat be known.
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"Come ready to play, or don't come at all," Brown replied when asked what his takeaway from the upset was. "That's my whole thing. We got to come ready to play. We just went through the motions today. I don't understand it."
The Celtics led their Atlantic Division foe by six points at the end of the first quarter, yet their advantage never grew past that. Instead, the Nets dropped a whopping 40 points in the second quarter to gain a nine-point lead at halftime.
"We need to play with an edge, defensively and offensively," Brown said. "You got to be the harder playing team, that can't be negotiable. And tonight we weren't."
Boston's defensive issues continued in the third quarter, as Brooklyn's lead ballooned to 15 points while Brown was sidelined for the final 5:52 of the period due to foul trouble. The four-time All-Star returned in the fourth quarter and helped the C's cut the deficit down to four points with 4:18 remaining.
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Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. immediately countered , though. After the Celtics made it 99-95, he recorded 13 of his 33 points in that crucial span. Boston had no offensive or defensive answer for his late-game explosion.
"Regardless if you're making or missing shots, regardless of anything, we just got to come out and play with great energy, great enthusiasm for the game," Brown stated. "Like, want to win. It just didn't seem like that was the case tonight."
Why Celtics' loss to Nets wasn't, and can't be, the norm for them
Friday night was a bit of an outlier for the Celtics. For a majority of the young season, they've played with a lot of effort and care . In fact, they beat the Nets in New York just three days prior via a strong fourth quarter filled with hustle plays.
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Brown didn't see that same energy during the rematch.
"At the end of the day, we all got a job to do," he began. "We all get paid to do what we love to do. Come ready to play basketball, or you're doing a disservice."
With star forward Jayson Tatum sidelined with a ruptured Achilles , the Celtics can't afford to approach any game without the utmost effort. They simply don't have the talent to take it easy on select days.
Brown knows this, and the longest-tenured Celtic wanted to remind everybody what donning the green and white requires night in and night out.
"Everybody got to come and be ready to do their job and have great energy, enthusiasm and want to win," he said. "You know, that's what it's about at the end of the day — Celtics basketball."
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Since Friday happened to be an NBA Cup game, the C's are unlikely to advance in the annual tournament. Boston is 1-2 in Cup play with a point differential of minus-20, so it'll need a big win over the red-hot Detroit Pistons on Wednesday afternoon for even a slight chance of making it out of East Group B .
Cup standings aside, the Celtics are 8-8 overall after falling to the Nets for the first time since March of 2023. It doesn't get any easier for the Green Team either, as they face five teams in a row that all qualified for the playoffs last season.
Ironically, the C's square off next with the one squad they eliminated in the previous postseason: the Orlando Magic . The Celtics and Magic are 1-1 against each other during the 2025-26 campaign, with the tiebreaker coming Sunday afternoon.
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If the Celtics want to prevail, they'll have to heed Brown's warning and come ready to play. Otherwise, they may start to spiral against an unrelenting gauntlet of opponents, which is something an undermanned team might not recover from.
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