NEW YORK — Jaylen Brown stared out at a room full of reporters, all of us waiting for him to explain the inexplicable. Stared through us.
It was a thousand-yard stare — one that stretched from the podium at Madison Square Garden out past the training table in the funereal visitor’s locker room. Maybe all the way back to the fall of 2017, when Brown first lined up next to a rookie named Jayson Tatum, forming a partnership that would come to define the NBA’s premier franchise for the better part of the decade.
That partnership would bring the Celtics their elusive 18th NBA championship, and would put them in position to continue to compete for titles for years to come.