Jaylen Brown reveals how Celtics can avoid mental lapses after close call vs. Magic

BOSTON — Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown has witnessed a lot in his 10 seasons in the NBA. He's been a part of crazy comebacks and brutal blowouts and is exceedingly familiar with the unexpected ups and downs of a professional game.

But just because Brown is experienced doesn't mean his teammates are, and that showed during a 138-129 win over the Orlando Magic on Sunday night. Although Boston largely controlled the game for three quarters and led by as many as 26 points in the second half, Orlando made it a 6-point contest with 1:11 remaining in the fourth quarter.

The Celtics still managed to hold on for their fourth win in five games, yet Brown couldn't ignore what went wrong in the final frame. The longest-tenured Green Teamer pondered a potential solution to his squad's struggles with sizable leads:

"Honestly, I think it's experience," he said during his postgame press conference. "I think that being in that position enough times, I've known that if you kind of change your mentality, or you let your foot off the gas, a team could come right back. I think we have a bunch of guys who are in that position for the first time and kind of learning that just because you're up 20 points going into the fourth quarter does not mean the game is over."

Exactly a week prior to the Celtics' latest win, they nearly blew a 24-point lead to the Los Angeles Clippers at TD Garden. In fact, Clippers star James Harden almost sent the game into overtime with less than a second left, but his 3-point attempt was off the mark.

Brown recognized this troubling pattern and believes the youth and inexperience of the current iteration of the Celtics is a fair explanation for it. Center Neemias Queta and wing Jordan Walsh are essentially first-time starters, first-year Celtic Josh Minott is getting used to consistent minutes, and guard Anfernee Simons is learning what it's like to come off the bench.

With some more time and experience in their new roles, Brown is confident the rest of his teammates will come to understand that winning in the NBA requires 48 minutes of effort.

"People who've played in the league or played on winning teams know that," he stated. "So, you can't change your mentality. You can't think, 'Oh, now it's time to play around. And now it's time to go away from the game plan.' You got to — no matter what the score is — you got to treat it like it's 0-0, and that's the mentality. But you can see that when you have less experience, that mentality wanes."

To prevent the Celtics from suffering their worst blown lead of the season, Brown notched 13 of his game-high 35 points in the fourth quarter, proving that his mentality truly never changed. Of course, it wasn't all him, as the Celtics collectively shot a season-high 60% from the field and committed a season-low 5 turnovers.

Up next for the 9-8 C's are the red-hot Detroit Pistons, who sit atop the Eastern Conference and have notched 12 straight wins. Brown and company can't afford to lose focus against them on Wednesday because they're sure to be less forgiving than a banged-up Magic squad on the second night of a back-to-back.

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This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: A bad fourth quarter nearly cost Jaylen Brown and the Celtics a win vs. the Magic