Things have been less than awesome for the Boston Celtics recently. After winning four straight contests to close out its first-half slate, the team suddenly finds itself in the midst of a woeful, four-losses-in-five-games stretch.
Friday night’s defeat at the hands of the Sacramento Kings may have been the worst of the bunch. Returning to action at home after an off day, Boston trailed a sub-.500 Kings squad for a considerable portion of the game. And while the Celtics did well to gain a small lead in the fourth quarter, they subsequently allowed a 13-2 run in the clutch.
As a result, Sacramento stole one at TD Garden, beating the Cs 107-96.
For a team that has faltered in the final minutes time and time again, it was one of the more glaring examples to date of its inability to perform consistently with the game on the line.
The result was so bad, in fact, that one of Boston’s cornerstone players was prompted to call his own leadership abilities into question after the game.
Jaylen Brown Affected by Perceived Inability to Lead
Celtics wing Jaylen Brown was seemingly in a bad place following his squad’s latest setback. As relayed by NESN, he commented that he had been trying to serve as a leader for the Celtics, but may have to find new ways to motivate himself and his teammates.
“My mom always told me to keep an open mind. There’s different ways to lead, so maybe the way that I’ve been trying to hasn’t been working,” he said. “So, you know, try other ways to be a leader, and be a better leader, and learn and grow, and make adjustments and things like that. But that’s something that I’ve always tried to work on and improve on.”
He continued by relaying that his perceived shortfall in leadership is affecting him away from the court.
“I haven’t done a good job leading this group, I lose sleep at night because of that,” he said.
Although the Kings loss doesn’t fall squarely on his shoulders, Brown definitely didn’t have his best outing on Friday. He scored 19 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and had three steals, but he also logged five turnovers and made just 8 of 20 shots from the field.
Brown Declines to Evaluate His Team
During his post-game media availability, Brown was also asked to evaluate the Celtics’ ceiling now that Boston has fallen to 20-21 on the season. However, rather than kick his team while it’s down, he elected to focus on how he can be better individually.
“My job is to just come out and play basketball and inspire guys to play hard and compete to win; I haven’t done a good job with that,” he said.
“That’s something that has been a challenge. Now for me, I accept that challenge, I’ve accepted that challenge at the beginning of the year, so ultimately, I’ve got to do a better job of, you know, being a leader.”
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Celtics Star Is ‘Losing Sleep’ Over His Inability to Lead Boston