‘I have no idea what made me do that’: Jaylen Brown surprised himself with 360 layup in Celtics win over Mavericks
The Celtics' bench was also joyfully surprised by Brown's highlight play.
Jaylen Brown has made several impressive moves during games over his eight-year career. He added one to the list Friday night that might have been his most impressive one yet.
In the early minutes of the fourth in the Celtics’ win over the Mavericks, Brown faced a tough contest from Dallas center Dereck Lively II in front of the basket. As Lively went straight up to contest Brown’s shot, the Celtics star spun around, doing 360, and made a left-handed layup off the backboard.
The bucket gave the Celtics a 104-92 cushion, marking just another bucket in a 72-point second half for Boston. But it served as an early exclamation point in the Celtics’ win, as Brown’s teammates shared impressed reactions from the bench.
Brown, who’s often turned opposing contests at the rim into dunk attempts, wasn’t sure why he went for a full 360 layup, but he found out he could do it.
“I have no idea what made me do that,” Brown told reporters. “Still a head-scratcher. If I had missed it, it probably would’ve looked bad. When you got the ability to jump and you got some hangtime, you got a split second, a little extra time to make a decision. I still had some time in the air, and I just flipped it up with my left.”
The layup was the most difficult of the 11 shots Brown made on Friday night, shooting 11 of 20 from the field as he scored 25 points. Brown added another impressive highlight though on the next possession, hitting a 28-foot stepback 3-pointer that served as his final basket of the night, which also gave the Celtics their largest lead in the game at the time.
But all the attention remained on Brown’s spinning layup after the game. Xavier Tillman, who saw his first extended run in a game since the Celtics traded for him in early February, said that things went as expected in Friday’s game, with Brown’s highlight shot being the exception.
“No surprises, other than JB’s 360 layup,” Tillman told reporters. “I was in the corner like, ‘This guy’s crazy.’ But otherwise, no surprises.”
Kristaps Porzingis concurred with Tillman’s opinion and the bench’s reaction to Brown’s layup, as he implied it was an on-brad play for the Celtics star.
“JB has these moments where you’re kind of holding your breath,” Porzingis told NBC Sports Boston. “Like, what’s he doing? What is this gonna be? This was one of those moments. This is a JB play – goes up, 360, and still shoots it.
“Doesn’t even try to pass or something to get out of trouble. Just shoots it and makes it. To be honest, from our angle from the bench that looked insane. I don’t know if you have a clip of our reaction, but the bench reaction was top three this season for sure.”
The Celtics were mostly able to cruise not long after Brown’s play, winning 138-110 for their 10th straight victory. Boston might be able to start cruising through the remainder of the regular season as well. It improved to 47-12 with the win, keeping its lead atop the Eastern Conference standings at eight games with just over a month to play in the regular season.
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