Celtics ☘️ Sentinel

 The Celtics Jaylen Brown has been the target of many Boston fans this season, with some of the flak being warranted . But over the last seven games (6-1 record), the criticism has calmed down - for a reason. Over that span, the 6'6" G/F has averaged 24.1 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 5.1 APG (not a misprint), 2.1 TOPG and a plus/minus of +9.4. His 3-point shooting has been a bit off (31.4%) , but his field goal-and-free-throw accuracy (53.1% and 88.0%, respectively) have not. Remember when Jaylen couldn't hit his free throws? And his assist numbers were low while his turnovers came too often. In that 7-game stretch, he took 3.6 free throw attempts per game and made 3.1 of them . And his assist-to-turnover ratio stands at 2.4 assists-per-miscue .  Brown has been curtailing his tendency to force his offense and he is a nightmare for defenders when he drives all the way to the hoop . He is scoring less and passing off more. And he does all of this quietly, although he has clearly state...

 A quick answer to my title question is, "Yes, they are now." I compared Jaylen Brown's assist numbers with former, Celtics star shooting guards and small forwards, The past crew of nine is shown below - with their career assist averages: Bill Sharman - 3.0 APG Sam Jones - 2.5 John Havlicek - 4.8 Larry Bird - 6.3 Paul Pierce - 3.5 Ray Allen - 3.4 Danny Ainge - 4.0 Dennis Johnson - 5.0 ______________________________________ Average - 3.7 assists per game Jaylen's average over seven seasons is 2.2 APG, but he has raised that number to 3.5 APG in his last two seasons . So what does this mean? Turnovers come into play , and Brown has been known to throw the ball away somewhat often. His assist-to-turnover ratio for last season was 1.2 assists for every turnover committed. A s hooting guard or small forward tries to have at least a ratio of 2.0 assists/turnover.  Both Brown and his fellow Jay Team member, Jayson Tatum tied for most turnovers committed in 2022-23 (2.9 p...

 I have not been a Rick Barry fan since I watched him belittle the great Bill Russell on National TV. But he recently spoke of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum as suffering from the Russell Westbrook Syndrome. Was he right? ( per SI's Eric Jay Santos ): Barry:  “Both (Jaylen) Brown and (Jayson) Tatum, who are two talented players, suffer from what I call (Russell) Westbrook syndrome. Westbrook is an incredible talent. I love how hard he plays, but he tries to force things. In the game of basketball, you should always be taking what the defense gives you… Both Jaylen and Jayson, they have a tendency to force things and end up getting a lot of turnovers.” Barry is known as one of the top passing forwards in the history of the NBA, and I do tend to agree with his assessment. I checked the numbers for the 2023 post-season via NBA.com, and sure-enough - Westbrook averaged the third-most turnovers (4.0 per game). Brown comes in at number-15 for turnovers in the playoffs. He has al...

 The Boston Celtics in the past have been known for not taking care of the ball . But thus far this season, their number, as a team, looks good. The Green rank 8th in the NBA with 13.9 turnovers per game . That is noteworthy. Now to assist-to-turnovers ratios for the Celtics players. Sam Hauser gets the team award for fewest turnovers per assist (ranked #11 League-wise), but we can't count that because he only averages 0.6 assists per game and a mere 0.1 turnovers.  Derrick White is ranked 23rd with a ratio of 4.5 assists/turnover, followed by Marcus Smart at 3.88 . Now to the bottom of the list for Boston. Jaylen Brown comes in at #302 . He is averaging 2.8 assists and 3.2 turnovers - thus his r atio is less than 1.0 - actually at 0.88. He has more turnovers than assists.   Told you this would be brief. There it is. Make of it what you wish!