Jaylen Brown’s efficiency on the rise

It’s not just that Jaylen Brown is scoring at the highest clip of his career. His efficiency has stood out for the coach who game-planned for the Celtics forward last night – Toronto’s Nick Nurse.

“It’s interesting to me. It seems like he’s getting a little bit of everything, a lot of open-floor play. He’s getting some isolation play, post-ups, put-backs, but not a lot of any one thing,” said Nurse. “I was looking at the film like crazy because obviously he’s had two great games here, a career high (Friday) night.

“And there’s not a lot of opportunities to take the ball out of his hands,” he said. “He’s making these plays kind of in the flow of his game. He’s not coming down running 10 mid-pick-and-rolls in a row and they’re going to him like this and you can blitz him out of that or whatever. It’s just he’s really being efficient, he’s getting it all over the place and he’s shooting the ball really well. The 3-point shooting, when you’re really hot from three that always helps your efficiency.”

Williams stuck on the shelf

Robert Williams, who missed his 10th straight game last night to a severely bruised left hip, doesn’t appear to be any closer to a return.

“I think I’m getting another MRI in like a week or two, see how it’s looking,” the Celtics center said before last night’s game against Toronto. “I feel like after we get the MRI results, that’s when we can decide how we’re going to handle it if it occurs again.”

Part of Williams’ frustration stems from not being able to do anything basketball-related.

“I can’t do anything basketball related. Dribble. I won’t be jumping, dunking, or anything, so it’s messing with my head not being able to do anything,” he said. “With the treatment that we’ve been doing and the time off on the court I’ve been feeling better, but just ready to be back out there.”

Smart smarting to get back to work

There’s a key to scrimmaging with Marcus Smart when he’s attempting to come back from injury, or in this case, a double-eye infection that forced the Celtics guard to miss eight straight games prior to his return last night against Toronto.

“You try to stay out of the way,” joked Celtics assistant coach Jay Larranaga, who along with several players like Javonte Green and fellow assistants took part in a session yesterday designed to work Smart back into a flow.

“He kept trying to find me, and I kept missing,” said Larranaga, normally a sound shooter who played professionally in Europe.

Last night’s plan for Smart was to blend him back into the core group Stevens has referred to as his top five – Jayson Tatum, Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward. A group, it should be noted, that has rarely been on the floor together this season.

“It’s great to have him back,” said Brad Stevens. “We haven’t been full very often, and obviously we still aren’t with VP (Vincent Poirier) and Rob out, but we’re a little bit closer on the perimeter obviously, and it will give us a chance to see how we can rotate those guys and different things, although a little bit muted because of the minutes thing.”

The scrimmage certainly went well.

“Against the coaches I’d say he was well above 100 (percent),” joked the Celtics coach. “But I don’t know playing in a real game. He didn’t miss a ton of time. I guess the silver lining is he got some time off his legs. The bad part is when you’re out you’re usually able to do something, and he wasn’t able to do anything. He’s needed this week to catch up, and that’s why we held him out yesterday and Christmas day as well.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2SB9epw