Jaylen Brown sheds light on 1-on-1 meeting with Jayson Tatum ahead of playoffs

During NBC’s coverage of Sunday night’s game against the Timberwolves, Celtics guard Jaylen Brown described a 1-on-1 meeting that he had with Jayson Tatum.

Tatum returned to action earlier this month following a 10-month rehab stint as he recovered from a ruptured Achilles’ tendon. Tatum is eight games into his comeback, and the Celtics have a few weeks left until the playoffs begin.

Brown said the meeting, which happened shortly before Tatum came back, was productive and helped set the tone for the rest of the players.

“It was great. The initial conversation, having that communication, sometimes as guys you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Brown said. “It’s a job. Sometimes your communication falls off, so being able to get back on the same page is important, but it’s going to take more communication as the year goes on.”

“Things change, you’ve got adversity, ups and downs, we just communicated that it’s going to be me and you,” he added. “Our communication sets the tone for the rest of the team, and we’ve both got to be better going forward if we want this thing to work.”

The Celtics have won six of their last 10 games. They are a half-game ahead of the Knicks for second-place in the Eastern Conference standings. They’ll travel to Madison Square Garden, the place where Tatum’s injury occurred last spring, to face the Knicks on April 9th. The playoffs will begin nine days later, on April 18th.

Vince Carter asked Brown the question about the meeting with Tatum, mentioning that he had spoken with Brown about the subject on the podcast he co-hosts with Tracy McGrady.

“First, I want to commend JT for taking that notion and being like ‘I want to come back’. I want salute that,” Brown said during an episode of “Cousins.” “And then we talked about a lot of different things. We talked about just the mindset that we want to come back and add to winning.”

Brown said he and Tatum are aware of the attention that comes with their fame and that they spoke about staying on the same page in spite of it.

“There’s going to be a lot of outside noise because we’ve accomplished a lot, we’ve won a lot and we have one of the biggest profiles in the game, and it’s the Boston Celtics,” Brown said. “So anytime if one of us scratches our a** its going to be on the news. So, we are aware and we’re both on the same page. We had a good talk about what we both want.”

“We talked to the team as well because I feel like the team kind of goes off what our energy is, because me and JT have gone to the Conference Finals five, six, seven times with different dudes around us at different points and times.”

The Celtics are about to embark on another playoff run with some familiar faces and plenty of new ones who have contributed in meaningful ways.

As the countdown to the playoffs gets closer, Brown and Tatum are keeping their goals of winning as much as possible in mind.

“Just understanding we’ve got to have each other’s back,” Brown said. “The ultimate goal is to try and win and make a run at this thing, and we both looked at each other and gave each other a head nod.”

Khari A. Thompson

Sports Reporter

Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.