MINNEAPOLIS – An arena full of crazed, excited, exuberant, increasingly loud NBA fans became silent with the sound of a loud thud hitting the floor.
It was Jaylen Brown losing his grip on the rim following a third-quarter dunk, which led to a hard spill that ended his night with a little more than a minute to play in the third quarter in Boston's 117-109 win over Minnesota.
The victory was indeed a bittersweet one for the Celtics, who were thrilled to get the win and clinch a playoff berth, but saddened that one of their teammates, one of their brothers, had suffered the kind of fall that had everyone in the building hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
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To see Brown go down seemed reminiscent in some ways to the dislocated left ankle injury suffered by Gordon Hayward in Boston’s season-opener at Cleveland.
But Brown’s injury isn’t close to being that severe.
After the game, Brown sent out a Twitter message indicating that he was okay but he “had a headache.”
If it were more serious, there is no way Brown would have been back with the team and on the team bus heading to the airport for their return trip to Boston after the game.
NBC Sports Boston reported that Brown was in fact on the team bus and headed to the airport shortly after the game.
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A Celtics team official confirmed later on that Brown was with the team and in fact on the team plane headed back to Boston.
“They say he’s fine; so that’s a good thing,” Terry Rozier told NBC Sports Boston.
However, the injury is still serious enough to where Brown will be monitored for concussion-like symptoms in the coming days.
“It was just a scary fall from everyone’s perspective,” said Kyrie Irving. “You never wanna see a guy go down like that. He was doing a full-on back flip after he fell off the rim and you know some guys land on their back when things happen like that. It’s just their hands get slippery or guys are just underneath them and scary falls happen like that. You just never wanna see that happen especially to a teammate of yours.”
Al Horford, who has had multiple concussions since coming to Boston, added, “I was just happy he was able to get up and walk on his own power. That’s one of the worst falls I’ve seen.”
Marcus Smart said he was “terrified” when he saw Brown’s fall.
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“I know what that fall is like,” said Smart who added that he had similar spill in high school. “I know exactly the horror that comes with that. It’s hard to see that. You don’t wish that upon anybody. For him to get up, that’s a strong kid. I was happy to see him on his feet walking off.”
“When he left, you could tell that he was feeling a lot better,” said coach Brad Stevens. “I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what it means, but we’ll get it checked out. We’ll make sure to take care of it.”
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