If you’re coming off a 30-point night marked by remarkable efficiency–9-for-18 from the field, 10-for-11 from the free-throw line–as Celtics star Jaylen Brown was doing after Friday’s win over the Heat at the Garden, maybe a night off is in order. As Boston moves on to the second half of its back-to-back slate on Saturday in Toronto, that’s what Brown will be getting.
Brown, the team’s leading scorer and fringe MVP candidate, was listed as doubtful on the Celtics’ most recent injury report, as he is dealing with a “non-Covid illness.” But 90 minutes before the game, the Celtics announced that Brown would, indeed, miss the Raptors on Saturday.
Brown is averaging a career-high 29.3 points this year, on 50.0% shooting and 36.4% 3-point shooting. He is also averaging 6.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists, and has only missed one game this season–back on December 4 in Washington, when the Celtics were playing in the first half of a back-to-back (the Lakers were the second half).
Celtics Facing Raptors on Back-to-Back
It’s hard to say what the Celtics’ chances will be against Toronto, because though they beat the Wizards without Brown in his first absence, the Raptors are 17-11 and are certainly not Washington. Toronto is, like the Celtics, a middle-of-the-pack East team trying to sort out its place in the conference going forward, so tonight’s game does carry some weight.
It also means that Brown won’t take the floor against Toronto’s Scottie Barnes, a player he tried to compliment last week but wound up doing so in an oddly insulting way. He said Barnes is uncharacteristically strong, adding, “He got that extra chromosome strength, like he just … like just some type of Ninja Turtle or something. That boy strong as hell.”
Having an extra chromosome does not result in extra strength, though–it is the cause of intellectual disabilities, as in Down syndrome and other conditions.
Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesScottie Barnes, Toronto Raptors
Jaylen Brown Issues Apology
Brown did later apologize for that, speaking on fellow Celtics star Derrick White‘s podcast.
As he said: “I didn’t know that was a thing. For Scottie, I said the comments but I didn’t know that was something that people had already been teasing him about. I apologize for that. I was unaware of that.
“But when I made the comment I was really trying to give him a compliment—maybe it was a poor choice of words but I was trying to say how strong he was, like when I said extra chromosome, people looked at it like something negative I was trying to say. But I was looking at it like Superman, Incredible Hulk, I’m a Marvel guy, so extra chromosome would be a benefit. I wasn’t thinking of making fun of any community.”
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