Jaylen Brown on Boston Celtics biggest January challenge: 'Mentally ... you start to wane'

ATLANTA -- Looking up and down the standings in the middle of January, you’ll find a lot of 6-4 and 5-5 in the “last 10 games” column.

That's the January doldrums for you. And even though the Celtics are a bit of a ragtag group this year, they are still led by veterans who have been around for a while and are prone to falling into the January trap. Jaylen Brown admitted as much at the team’s Saturday shoot around at State Farm arena.

“At this point, mentally is the part we’ve just to push through,” he said. “You start to wane a little bit, as your body starts to wane a little bit, your mind can wane a little bit too. So this is where you’ve got to still be firm with the ball and all that type of stuff and execute because that can be the difference between you winning or losing games.”

The Celtics needed a heroic 39-point effort from Anfernee Simons to avoid a three-game losing streak. They went into Miami having lost three of four games, and to say they looked terrible to start the game would be a Wembanyama-sized understatement. If it wasn’t for Simons, that game might have been over at halftime.

The Celtics have the second-best offense in the league with a rating of 121.5. Their defense is in the middle of the pack, but their offense has been so good that they still have the second-best net rating in the NBA (+7.1). However, over the last five games, the Celtics offensive rating has dropped to 116 and their net rating has dropped to +0.9. Their overall shooting has dipped by a couple of percentage points and their turnovers have gone up slightly.

In December, when he felt like he was robbed of Player of the Month honors, Brown shot 53.8% from the field, 42.6% from 3, and he turned it over 3.7 times per game. In January, he’s shooting 43.9% overall, 38.5% from 3, and he’s turning it over 4.4 times. Over his last five games, he’s shot 41.7% overall, 44.4% from 3, and he’s turned it over 5.3 times. So if it wasn’t for some hot shooting from deep, Brown would be knee-deep in a swoon.

When the mentality starts to wane, its the details that suffer most. And when those go away, that's when things fall apart. Joe Mazzulla’s biggest challenge for the Celtics is to get them back on track executing the little things that go into a more positive big picture.

“Execution is different in so many ways,” Mazzulla told reporters this week in Miami. “It could be screening, it could be spacing, could be shot making, could be making the two-on-one read. It could be defense. It could be our situational tendencies on individual players that we're guarding. So that's more important, because you can control it over the course of the long haul.”

Through it all, the Celtics still sit at second in the East. They were probably due to hit a rough patch, but the Knicks skid has been worse, and the only East team to win more games than Boston over the last 10 games is Cleveland, who has gone 7-3. And even with that, they are still only in sixth right now because of their early struggles.

“We’re at the halfway point. What is this game 41? So it’s a perfect time to reflect on everything,” Brown said. “The start of the season, the amount of growth we’ve had as a team. I’ve enjoyed playing with this group, I’ve enjoyed playing with the young guys and helping them with their learning curve. It’s been a joy. I’m looking forward to the next part of the season, and we’ve still got some work to do.”