‘I'm finding my footing': Jaylen Brown's role taking shape with Sixers originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Jaylen Brown has spent the opening weeks of the season describing the Sixers as a work in progress.
He offered a similarly humble perspective Monday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena. His performance, however, provided the clearest look yet at how he can influence this group while sharing the floor with the club’s other established stars.
Brown finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds and five assists in the Sixers’ 126-107 win over the Chicago Bulls. He shot 9 for 15 from the field, made four three-pointers and did not commit a turnover.
Five of his rebounds came on the offensive end, an area Brown has emphasized while the Sixers continue piecing together their frontcourt rotation.
“Just a mindset,” Brown said. “Just trying to create extra opportunities for my team. As we’re trying to patch together our fives and our front line, I try to make an extra contribution and emphasis on the glass.”
Brown has also been careful about how he describes his place on a roster that already belonged to Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey.
Maxey scored 15 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter Monday, continuing his torrid start to the season. He has led the Sixers in scoring while being the only starter to appear in all eight games.
Brown is not interested in interrupting that.
“Maxey’s been leading the way, 100 percent,” Brown said. “He’s been here. This is his team. Him and Joel have been here for a while, so the mindset has been to complement those guys. I’m finding my footing, but Maxey has been leading the way for sure.”
Brown’s footing looked firm against Chicago.
Beyond his scoring, he helped the Sixers control the glass, moved the ball within an offense that generated 23 assists during the first half and supplied the physicality Nick Nurse expects from him.
“The dude is tough and he wins,” Nurse said. “I’ll take that all day long. The degree of difficulty on some of the shots he hit was really amazing. I thought he pounded the glass and got some key rebounds. Makes a lot of winning plays. Man, he’s a winner.”
Brown spent the first 10 years of his career in Boston. He won a championship there, reached another NBA Finals and grew from a 20-year-old prospect into one of the league’s premier two-way wings.
Moving into a new system alongside James, Embiid and Maxey was never going to be seamless.
“I mean, he’s fitting in along with all of us,” James said. “We’re getting better and better. It’s not going to happen overnight. He spent his first 10 years in a system in Boston, in the city, so it’s going to take some adjustment.
“It takes adjustment for him. It’s going to take adjustment for the rest of the guys that joined this franchise as well. But tonight was a great step.”
James pointed to Brown’s “pressure, his shot-making ability, his rebounding ability” and his professionalism.
Brown’s early influence has extended beyond his production.
The Sixers entered Monday with one of the NBA’s best half-court defenses. Brown has been one of the group’s most persistent voices, stressing communication, preparation and attention to opposing players’ tendencies.
“That’s the part that I care about the most as a group, not individually,” Brown said. “Having a mentality night in and night out, respecting your opponent, respecting the game, making sure that we are executing our coverages, we’re being clear in our communication and then we’re also taking away tendencies on a night-to-night basis.
“Those things I just explained are over 50 percent of the battle.”
Brown understands that maintaining those details across an 82-game schedule will require more than reminders.
“A little bit of accountability,” he said. “You learn different guys require different things. How you communicate with each guy may be a little different, but accountability for sure and confrontation if need be.
“The offense is going to be what it’s going to be, but our defense has got to be non-negotiable. That’s something I say all the time. Non-negotiable. You want to be a good team, defense is non-negotiable.”
The Sixers showed both sides of their defensive potential Monday.
They built a double-digit lead during the first half, allowed Chicago to score 36 points in the second quarter and then created separation after halftime. Philadelphia held the Bulls to 20 points in the third quarter before pulling away in the fourth.
Brown did not celebrate their ability to raise their intensity after it slipped.
“I don’t like that we have that,” he said. “It’s good that we have shown the potential, but we’ve got to keep that switch on. It doesn’t work like that where you just flip the switch.
“It can catch up to us and it can bite us against a better team or on a night that we’re not being as crisp on offense. It can’t be a switch just because we’re playing a lesser opponent or whatever the case may be. We’ve got to make sure that mentality is from the beginning to end. Can’t skip any steps.”
That urgency accompanies considerable optimism.
Brown said the Sixers enjoy playing together. He loves when James grabs a rebound because “he’s like a quarterback,” capable of launching an outlet pass or immediately pushing the pace.
The group is learning when to attack, when to move the ball and how to avoid hesitating in its effort to play unselfishly.
“It’s a lot of talent, man,” Brown said. “We like each other, and we’re just kind of building that chemistry of how we can get this thing to a well-oiled machine. I think we’re taking steps forward every single day.”
The Sixers are 7-1 despite Brown believing those steps remain incomplete. They have won close games, erased sizable deficits and received important contributions from different players.
Brown’s performance Monday showed another version of how their pieces can fit.
“We still have a long way to go to being a really, really solid, great team,” Brown said. “But we’ve been able to win some games. We started out the season great, 7-1, and you haven’t seen our best version yet.
“That’s a good sign.”
