Jaylen Brown compares guarding Luka and Kyrie to listening to music: "You gotta learn when their beat is about to drop"

Although he has not won the DPOY award in his NBA career and has never been named to a single All-Defensive team in the league before, 2024 NBA Finals MVP Jayen Brown has emerged as one of the best two-way players in the NBA today.

At 6'6" tall, athletic, and with a wingspan of 6 feet and 11.74 inches, Brown possesses the perfect attributes of an elitewing defender. And with all the offensive talent around him in Boston, JB has been able to showcase his defensive skills in recent years.

During his recent appearance on the 'Hot Ones' show, the No.3 overall pick of the 2016 NBA Draft talked about how he uses rhythm to defend opposing players.

"If you see certain guys, they play to a certain beat, to a certain cadence, they play a certain style," Brown said. "And if you know their style, you can time what they're gonna do next because you know the rhythm in the BPM that they kind of play at."

Brown compared guarding Luka and Kyrie

Regarding their 2024 NBA Finals showdown against the Dallas Mavericks, JB explained that Luka Doncic has a unique rhythm. Jaylen says Doncic is almost so slow-moving that it's very hard to time him. Meanwhile, Luka's backcourt partner, Kyrie Irving , also has a unique rhythm because he's got plenty of counter moves.

Brown said Irving can pivot off both his feet, shoot with either hand, and drive in both directions. With his bag of tricks, Jaylen says Kai's cadences are difficult to time, and his rhythm is even harder to track.

"Some guys only go right, some guys only go left, and some guys have two moves that they go to," added Brown. "So, I look at basketball as like poetry in motion, which is music. Everybody is playing their own song. Everybody samples from different artists and they're playing their own song. If you want to stop them you gotta study their rhythm, you gotta learn when their beat is about to drop."

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The Celtics clamped down on the Mavericks in the Finals

The C's were a powerhouse offensive team that led the league in offensive rating and was second overall in team scoring. However, Boston used a suffocating defense to limit the Mavs to a mere 99.2 points per game after averaging 117.9 PPG during the regular season.

Although Joe Mazzulla gave the Mavericks different looks on defense, JB spent a total of 32:04 of playing time defending Luka. During that span, Doncic shot just 9/22 from the field, including 2/8 from three-point range, while committing five turnovers. Meanwhile, Irving was held to 19.8 PPG on 41.4% FG and 27.6% 3P%. Kai was mainly matched against Jrue Holiday or Derrick White, but Brown and the rest of the team did a good job coming off to help.

With Dallas' dynamic duo unable to do damage simultaneously, Boston neutralized the vaunted Mavs offense and won the series 4-1. Jaylen was named the 2024 NBA Finals MVP despite Jayson Tatum putting up better numbers, as many think the difference was Brown's defense.

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