When Jaylen Brown locks in, proceed with caution

Back in 1989, a young Doug Collins and an even younger Michael Jordan sat at a podium before a room full of reporters, all of whom were wondering, “Doug, what did you call that set Jordan up for ‘The Shot’?” “The Shot,” despite Jordan’s career knowingly being full of too many big shots and big moments for that moniker to be distilled down to one play, refers to the leaning jumper the greatest basketball player to ever live sank over the outstretched, flailing arms of Cleveland Cavaliers’ guard Craig Ehlo to down the Cavs and send his Chicago Bulls to the second round of the ‘89 playoffs. And as Collins put it, the play he called to help architect such an iconic moment was simple: “That was ‘get the ball to Michael, everybody get the f*** out of the way.’”

On Thursday night, Boston Celtics big man Al Horford wasn’t nearly as colorful in his response to a reporter’s question about how the C’s fueled one of the greatest comebacks in recent NBA Finals history to stun the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 and steal home-court advantage in the series. Horford didn’t have to be clever or crass; he was just as effective by saying what he needed to in order to make it clear that one man, in particular, deserved a bulk of the credit for the comeback.

“I think that for us the key was Jaylen Brown.”

While Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Finals will be remembered generally, by most, as the game in which the Celtics spurred a 20-plus point turnaround to take a 1-0 lead over the presumptive series favorite, perhaps a better way to ensure that it’s enshrined in some small corner of the history books somewhere is by pedestaling its fourth period as “The Jaylen Brown Quarter.” He scored 10 of the Celtics’ first 14 points in the frame, and assisted on Boston’s other two baskets in that stretch. In total, he either scored or assisted on 20 of the Celtics’ first 23 points of the…