BOSTON – Jaylen Brown couldn’t get the exact quote correct, but you could put the words together to draw a reasonable conclusion about where he was going.
“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth” is an African proverb popularized six years ago by the Marvel movie “Black Panther,” and Brown used it to describe how he and teammate Jayson Tatum dealing with the criticism of being a Celtics and being part of a contending team that hasn’t gotten over the hump yet.
Tatum chuckled and took an imaginary left-handed jump shot when asked if he was the most scrutinized player in the playoffs, joking with a smile, “You think so?” So all of this is in the minds of the Celtics’ two headliners.
For a franchise that only hangs championship banners, a franchise that – in the absence of the feel-good Knicks and the drama-chasing Lakers – is always being dissected on daily television, social media and every other place where discussions around the NBA take place.
It can be tiring and nerve-wracking.
Or in the case of these NBA Finals, of this playoff run, everything can be so charmed that it presents an opportunity to change the narrative as much as it does to become a champion.
That’s what Tatum and Brown are staring at on the eve of their second final.
“When you refer to that, you get to a point where, if you’re scrutinized enough for much of your career, it becomes normal,” Brown said, harkening back to the proverb. “Then it just rolls off of you. At least for me, I can say. I don’t know if Jayson feels the same way.’
In a sense, Tatum was the golden child who came to the Celtics on draft night. Brown, who arrived a year earlier, remembers different feelings — so much so that he was shocked when he received the MVP award for the Eastern Conference finals when the Celtics defeated the shorthanded Indiana Pacers.
“It’s been that way, in a way, my entire career,” Brown says. “Just being booed when you were called up to say you were overpaid, and then again to say you were overpaid. It’s been that way for me the entire journey.
“It will just be a new headline.”
Today’s headline is the missed opportunity from 2022, when the Celtics squandered a 2-1 lead over the Golden State Warriors when Stephen Curry went to a level no one could comprehend or match.
In the final three games of that series, Tatum shot 39% from the field and averaged just 21 points. Brown was the lone bright spot in the decisive Game 6 loss at home, scoring 34, but he had five turnovers in each of the last two games – becoming a target for the Warriors’ defense and one for the fans’ ire .
The Celtics fell below that Finals weight and failed to reach June last year in an even more disappointing loss to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Finals.
But the stage has been cleared for them to have new bodies, as Kristaps Porziņģis has been dropped from the injury report, and they don’t have a play-off streak either, with a fairly easy path to get here.
“We kind of took it for granted at certain times,” Tatum said, referring to last year. “We didn’t make it to the final. This year put things into perspective. I think you can see it in our excitement when we won the conference. Obviously this is not the end, but it is really difficult to reach this moment.”
All that’s left is to parse some silly things, like Tatum’s alleged facial expression when Brown was awarded the ECF MVP. And the general discussion about Tatum’s individual offensive game, which certainly seems fair considering his numbers, averaging 26 points, 10.4 rebounds and 5.9 assists, but shooting 44.2% from the floor and 29% from the 3-point range.
“My mom found it a little bit harder than maybe I did. But for me, I don’t take it personally, right? Just a long break without NBA basketball, so they had to overanalyze every little thing, have something to talk about,” Tatum said . ‘Has it gotten old?
Brown said he has watched the 2022 Finals in its entirety four or five times since then, noting that the Celtics are a much different team than the inexperienced one versus Golden State.
“Yes, you learn and grow from your experiences, going from a 25-year-old to a 27-year-old is a big difference,” Brown said. “Yes, I’m 27 [smiling]. You learn from those experiences.
“We have a different team. We also have another coach. We had Ime Udoka; now we have Joe Mazzulla. We had Marcus Smart, Rob Williams; we have Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porziņģis. A different team, a different coach two years later makes a pretty big difference.”
Mavericks coach Jason Kidd, in a way, debunks the experiential element of participating in the finals. When he carried the New Jersey Nets to the Finals in 2002 and 2003, they didn’t lose because of inexperience, as he saw it.
“It’s simple: talent. Sometimes you don’t have enough talent,” Kidd said. “When I brought up the Lakers and Nets, we were happy to be there, but we just didn’t have enough talent to beat Kobe and Shaq. It can be that simple.”
Sometimes experience or confidence can be the difference between winning and losing when the teams are evenly matched, or when the supernova is on the other side, in the case of Dallas’ Luka Dončić.
All that matters is that the Celtics believe their past failures have prepared them for this, and they believe it will help, not hinder.
“I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason,” Tatum said. “There is a lesson to be learned in every situation. I do. I feel very different this time, two years later. I’m glad we have the opportunity to get the job done.”
