MINNEAPOLIS – Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown needed less than two seconds to dribble between his right leg four straight times near the end of the first half Saturday. He was sizing up his defender, Jaylen Clark, and setting up his next shot, a stepback jumper from a couple of feet behind the 3-point arc.
The degree of difficulty on the attempt couldn’t have been much higher, but Brown drilled the long triple anyway. Even by the high standards he has set during a season of elite shot-making, his 27-point first-half outburst Saturday qualified as brilliant.
Still, after the Boston Celtics shot just 36.4 percent in the second half of a 119-115 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, he was left to wonder where things went wrong for his team’s offense after halftime and why referees haven’t rewarded him or his team many free throws.
“I don’t understand,” said Brown, who tied his season high with 41 points. “One, as a team, I think we’re last in free-throw attempts. But even me personally, I’m one of the most aggressive downhill players in the league. Nobody’s as aggressive as me. And I don’t understand. Night to night, it’s the same thing. I don’t get it. Maybe somebody could help me out with that one, but tonight I shoot four free throws, and I’m aggressive the whole game. I’m watching around the league, other guys get these certain calls and things like that. It is what it is. I just don’t understand.”
As Brown suggested, the Celtics do rank last in free-throw attempts per game. It is just one of their glaring offensive weaknesses. To rank fifth in offensive efficiency, they have needed to overcome a truly flawed shot profile.
Boston ranks 30th in location effective field goal percentage, which means the Celtics would rank 30th in effective field goal percentage if they shot the league average from every location, according to Cleaning the Glass. Only the Phoenix Suns have taken fewer shots from inside the restricted area, which is generally where teams shoot most efficiently. The Celtics have attempted the most long midrange jumpers, generally considered the worst shots in basketball, with 13.3 percent of all their shot attempts coming from that zone.
So, how have they scored at such a high clip? Brown’s proficiency from all over the court has helped. Essentially, even bad shots have been good ones for him. He entered Saturday shooting 58.7 percent on 2-pointers of 16 feet or longer, according to Basketball Reference. By leading the league in midrange makes per game (3.2 per game entering Saturday), he has hidden some of the Celtics’ deficiencies.
Brown did so again during the first half Saturday while becoming the first player in the play-by-play era to finish a first half with at least 27 points, five assists, five rebounds and three steals. Of his 11 made field goals before halftime, nine came on long midrange jumpers or 3-point attempts. Despite attempting only one free throw over the first two quarters, he scored 27 first-half points on 11-of-18 shooting, including 3-of-5 shooting on 3-point attempts.
Helping the Celtics build a double-digit lead, Brown didn’t start to force anything once he got hot. He shoveled a couple of interior dimes to Neemias Queta and fired a beautiful cross-court pass to set up a Hauser 3-pointer.
Brown still found plenty of time to call his own number, though. When he did, the Timberwolves didn’t have much success against him. He let them know about it, too, breaking out the “too small” gesture after banking home a first-quarter jump shot against Edwards.
Jaylen Brown hits Anthony Edwards with the *too small* 😳 😆 pic.twitter.com/Rr1ZBpssua
— Taylor Snow (@taylorcsnow) November 29, 2025
“He had two hands on me,” Brown said. “The refs, they don’t give me no love, you know what I mean? I drive to the basket, they allow guys to do whatever they want, and I still play through it. It is what it is, but Ant is just too small. So, I just shot it over him. I thought he pushed me a little bit on my shot, so I put a little extra on it that made it go off the glass. But at the end of the day, that’s my bro, and I look forward to those matchups.”
Though Brown added another 14 points after halftime, the rest of the Celtics offense dried up. Their double-digit lead disappeared quickly in the third quarter as the Timberwolves controlled most of the second half.
“Obviously, we had some elite shot-making from both Jaylen and Sam (Hauser) in that first half,” said Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla. “I thought they did a better job, just kind of their pressure in the second half, and then, at the end of the third, beginning of fourth, we had our small lineup there. We just didn’t do a great job creating enough advantages. I thought they picked up their pressure, their individual defense was good. They tested our slips, our dribble drives, our off-ball screens, and I thought that’s kind of where the game was (decided).”
It’s no shock that the Celtics offense, missing Jayson Tatum and several other key contributors from last season, has been less dynamic. If anything, it’s a surprise that the team has still scored as well as it has. The Celtics have done their best to help themselves on the margins by leading the league in turnover rate and climbing to 10th in offensive rebound rate. Still, during certain stretches, their inability to manufacture easier shots has held them back.
“I think we definitely just go through stretches where it’s tough to create those advantages,” Derrick White said, “and so, when you go through those stretches, it puts a lot of pressure on the defense. So, just got to try to figure out a way to continue to create advantages.”
After falling behind by 12 points in the fourth quarter, the Celtics made one last charge to knot the score at 110-110 on Brown’s pull-up 3-pointer with 1:38 left. After Mike Conley responded with a triple of his own, however, Brown missed a 3-pointer that would have tied the game again. Edwards then extended Minnesota’s lead to six points by nailing a 3-pointer after he briefly lost possession of the ball.
“Definitely backbreaking,” White said, “especially after I missed the last free throw. Just tried to make him take a tough shot. And he’s one of the special players in the league for a reason. And he made a tough shot.”
That’s what special players do. Brown has done it plenty already this season. But somehow, the Celtics need to relieve some of the pressure on him to make difficult shots time after time.