Jaylen Brown

Thanks to a season-saving second half, Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics lived to fight another day. Brown and company trailed the eighth-seeded Miami Heat by six at halftime in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, a series they were already behind 3-0, facing a daunting climb that no team in NBA history has ever come back from. That did not matter to Brown, who, with some help from Grant Williams on the defensive end and Marcus Smart in facilitating the counterattack, was able to finish a fourth-quarter possession with a driving layup that turned into an and-1 conversion. The sequence stretched Boston’s late lead to 15 with under four minutes to play as the Celtics out-scored the host Heat by 23 in the second half to stave off elimination. Brown was at the center of it all with 17 points, four rebounds, four assists and two steals in his squad’s 116-99 win on May 23, 2023.