New Jaylen Brown Injury Revealed; Celtics Star Set to Miss Time

Jaylen Brown

Getty Jaylen Brown #7, Boston Celtics

Jaylen Brown posted one of his best career performances against the New Orleans Pelicans on January 11, dropping 41 points in the Boston Celtics‘ 30th victory of the 2021-22 regular season. Unfortunately, in his postgame interview, Brown revealed that he sustained a new injury during the game.

“I tweaked my groin a little bit, so I was done. I’m going to get it looked at after the game and get ready for the next one,” Brown said. He then elaborated and how the medical team will approach his injury going forward.

“They’ll get my treatment. I’ll go through my routine and see what it looks like for tomorrow,” he added.

Update: The Celtics ruled Brown out for Boston’s January 12 game against the surging Brooklyn Nets, who have won nine of their past 10 games. Prior to tipoff, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla further elaborated on Brown’s right adductor strain, noting to reporters that the one-time All-Star could be out of action for multiple weeks.

“I anticipate it being pretty short,” Mazzulla noted when asked how long Brown would be sidelined, via ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. “Probably a week or two.”

Brown has managed to stay relatively healthy throughout the first half of the season. Of the 42 games the Celtics have played, Brown has appeared in 40 of them. Over the past two seasons, Brown has suffered injuries that caused him to miss quite a few games. Brown suffered a hamstring injury early on during the 2021-22 season, which was after he tore a ligament in his wrist that sidelined him for the latter part of the 2020-21 season.


Celtics Injury Report Against Nets

Brown wasn’t the lone Celtics starter ruled out for Thursday’s Eastern Conference showdown. Veteran Al Horford was also listed as “out” due to low back stiffness.

As for the Nets, they’ll be without Kevin Durant, who recently suffered an MCL sprain in his right knee.

Outside of big man Robert Williams working his way back from knee surgery, Danilo Gallinari tearing his ACL and Horford sitting out on back-to-backs, the Celtics have been mostly healthy overall as a team this season. Even Malcolm Brogdon, who came to Boston with a reputation for being injury-prone, has played in 36 of their 43 games thus far.

With the season halfway over, their fortunes could change for the worse, but with Williams back after an extended absence, the Celtics may finally get an extensive look at how the team plays with mostly everyone in the fold.


Brown Believes the Best is Yet to Come From Him and Tatum

After the Celtics defeated the Pelicans, Brown told reporters during his postgame interview that, despite this being the best both he and Jayson Tatum have looked as a duo, he believes the star pairing can reach even grander heights.

“I don’t think this is the best you will see,” Brown told reporters after the team’s victory over the Pelicans. “So far, I think this is the best individually that we both have come out and played and led our team this season…I definitely think we got other limits to reach in the future, in our career. And this is just a part of the process is right now trying to still learn and figure things out. So I’m interested to see how he continues to grow, I continue to grow over the years.”

Both Tatum and Brown are making strong cases to return to the all-star game this season. Should that happen, Tatum would make his fourth all-star team while Brown would make his second. If the Celtics have the best record two weeks before the all-star game, Joe Mazzulla will join them.