LOS ANGELES — Last week, Jaylen Brown shared an Instagram story that highlighted the Celtics’ record this year compared to last year.
The graphic, created by NBC Sports Boston, compared the 2024-2025 Celtics’ and the 2025-2026 Celtics’ record, net, offensive, and defensive ratings at the All-Star break, ultimately demonstrating how, remarkably, both teams’ on-court success were pretty comparable.
Both Celtics teams held the the second seed in the Eastern Conference at the break, as well as the NBA’s third-best net rating. This year’s Celtics have the better offense; last year’s more veteran team had the better defense.
Almost immediately, Brown’s post was widely criticized, with some fans perceiving it as a shot at Jayson Tatum, who has been sidelined all season due to an Achilles injury he suffered last spring.
But, Brown was perplexed about how that happened – how a post touting his team’s unlikely success turned into a negative thing.
“The thing I posted, that was about celebrating our group,” Brown told CelticsBlog in an exclusive conversation. “People make it seem like it was about me, because that’s what people wanted it to be about. But in reality, I’m just so proud of our group. I’m extremely proud.”
Back in July, the last time we extensively spoke 1-on-1, Brown told me that he expected to surprise the world ahead of a season in which few expected the Celtics to be competitive.
But, even he didn’t know that this level of team success was coming so soon.
The Celtics have the third-best record in the league since December 1st, and a litany of improbable victories. Earlier this month, for example, they blew out the Houston Rockets on the second night of a back-to-back in a game in which two-way player Ron Harper Jr. got his first career start — and the Celtics got a big-time win with Brown and Sam Hauser both sidelined.
So, it fills him with an immense amount of pride and gratitude to talk about the Celtics’ success so far.
“I believed that we were going to be fine, but even to me, it’s like, ‘Damn, we’re the second seed – one of the five best records in the whole league,” Brown said. “Only a few teams have a better record than us in the entire league. We’re a top-five team in the league, coming from the start of the season, when it was [supposed to be] a gap year.”
Brown can’t stop beaming as he talks about his group.
He appreciates that the Celtics have blown previous expectations out of the water, and enjoys gushing about how this season has been playing out.
But, in our lengthy conversation, he never brings up himself – not his own career-best individual season, nor his first-ever All-Star start, which he celebrated in Los Angeles.
For Jaylen Brown, this season has been about the young guys
What Brown has enjoyed most this season is seeing the Celtics organization at its best — watching unproven players like Jordan Walsh and Hugo Gonzalez tremendously impact winning. In his first two years in the NBA, Walsh had yet to break into the Celtics’ rotation, and Brown, a close friend of his, stayed in his ear, encouraging him.
He broke through this season en route to a career-year highlighted by 20 consecutive starts for Boston. Walsh is averaging 5.6 points in 18.5 minutes per game — both career-highs.
And, Gonzalez, drafted late in the first round and at just 19 years old, quickly became an impactful rotation player. As it currently stands, he has the best individual net rating of any player in the NBA. Few predicted that, at 19 years old, the Celtics rookie would be so impactful, so soon. But he’s been a critical part of multiple victories.
“As a leader, to see our guys finding their footing and flourishing, I’m prouder about that,” Brown said. “Just to see certain guys unsure about their roles, or their situation, and to see Jordan playing well, Hugo playing well in stretches. Like, they’ve helped us win games. I take pride in that. I’m proud of that.”
He’s especially in awe of the Celtics’ player development program, which, alongside Gonzalez and Walsh, has propelled players like Baylor Scheierman and Luka Garza toward career seasons. He shouted out each of the Celtics’ assistant and player development coaches, people who are integral to the Celtics’ team success, but rarely receive credit in the public eye.
“I’m extremely proud of our group, coaching staff included,” Brown said. “All the guys that put time and effort – Sham [God Shammgod Jr], Da’Sean [Butler], Ross [McCain], DJ [MacLeay] – all our coaching staff have done a really good job of developing guys.”
Brown is also adamant that Derrick White should have been an All-Star, and that starting center Neemias Queta is only beginning to scratch the surface of his ceiling. He’s been thoroughly impressed with how Anfernee Simons carried himself through his 49-game Celtics stint, and with how Payton Pritchard has handled an increased role as one of the Celtics’ primary scoring options.
So, Brown might just keep posting Instagram graphics that highlight just how good this Celtics team has been playing.
He emphasized that, alongside Tatum, they lost four other great players this offseason – Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, Luke Kornet, and Kristaps Porzingis.
And, he’s in awe of how the Celtics have adapted in the face of those veteran losses.
Brown also attributes some of the the Celtics’ success this season to a formative offseason conversation between himself and Joe Mazzulla, in which both candidly discussed their preferred approach for the year ahead.
“Before the season started, Joe had an idea of what he wanted, how he wanted to coach the team,” Brown said. “I had an idea of how I wanted to lead the team, and we kind of had to meet in the middle before the season even started. We had an idea of how we were going to both work together. Because if we don’t work together, if it would have been me not buying into Joe, none of this would work. Me being able to be on the same page with Joe has allowed us to be in the position that we’re in now.”
Jaylen Brown has found peace
At age 29, Brown understands that words and actions can be taken out of context. That’s part of why he started regularly Twitch streaming — so that he can address things head-on and elaborate on his perspective.
For example, in a recent stream, Brown spoke glowingly about Tatum’s rehab, and shared how much pride he has in his co-star for all the progress he’s made.
“If you hear me talk about anything in my most recent streams, I mentioned how proud I am of my team, I mentioned how proud I am of JT’s progression,” Brown said. “It’s all that type of stuff.”
Brown still finds it perplexing why his Instagram story had become controversial, though it’s far from the first time something like that has happened in his NBA career.
After a screenshot of his Instagram story blew up online, he ended up Tweeting it on his own account, with a simple caption emphasizing why he had highlighted those statistics: “I’m proud of this group and staff / office looking forward to 2nd half go Cs.”
But, at this point in his career, he doesn’t worry too much when these kinds of things happen.
Tuning out the outside noise has brought him an inner peace.
“People have always tried to pick apart everything that I said,” Brown said. “And over the course of my career, I’ve tried to be very meticulous about it. I try to say as little as possible, I try to make sure that I’m not saying anything that’s gonna stir the pot. Now, I’m at this point in my career, and I’m like, I could care less.”
“People are going to infer whatever they want. It’s not in my control… I say how I feel. I say what I’m proud of. And, I’m proud that our team is doing great.”
What Brown does want to talk about is how incorrect the pundits and analysts were about how good this Celtics team could be.
“We were supposed to be tanking, that was the talk,” Brown said. “To be in the top five teams in the league? I’m proud of that. I’m extremely proud. Ain’t nobody can tell me nothing.”
It doesn’t matter how outside people might perceive that sentiment.
“I feel like the most peaceful I’ve felt this season is because I just stopped caring about all that stuff,” Brown said. “And that’s why I feel like I’ve been at the most at the most peace I’ve ever been at in my career, because I just stopped giving a fuck about what the media or what people feel about what I gotta say, or, you know, if they feel offended by something I said – whatever. I said it with the right intent. I said it to highlight something that I feel like is important to highlight.”
And, in this case, he won’t let the world forget about how wrong people were about this Celtics team.
“Everybody was calling it a gap year,” Brown said. “How do you go from a gap year to top five in the East? That’s a big jump. That’s not a small jump. People want to skip over that. I’m not gonna let you skip over it. That is a big deal.”
Most importantly, he thinks this Celtics team is only going to get better as the year continues. As it currently stands, they hold a half-game lead for second place in the Eastern Conference, with Tatum’s potential return looming.
And, he wants to keep talking about how they’re doing the improbable.
“I’m proud of our group,” Brown said, beaming. “And I would yell it from the top of this house.”
