Boston Celtics: Player report cards for Christmas

Jaylen Brown: D-

Jaylen Brown has been bad. Like, really bad. He’s a very good basketball player who found himself bearing the brunt of the offense in the playoffs and performed at such an impressive clip his ceiling felt like it was superstar level. He has seen massive regression this season.

Jaylen is still averaging the fifth-most points on the roster, but his efficiency has been terrible. He’s shooting just .407/.271/.667 on the season and adding just 4.1 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game. Despite having one of the worst 3-point percentages on the team, he’s launching the fifth-most of the Celtics.

It would be mostly forgivable if Juice were offering a steady hand on defense, but his off-ball defense has been lousy. Brown has appeared lost at times when he’s not the on-ball defender, and has basically been a complete liability on the parquet this year.

With 52 games left to play, Brown can still improve, but he has a very long way to go to get back to where he was in last season’s playoffs.

Terry Rozier: C-

Scary Terry achieved a cult-like fan following after he stepped into Kyrie Irving’s shoes and played glowingly in the closing months of last season and the playoffs. Like Brown, however, Terry Rozier has regressed a bit this season. He hasn’t been completely dreadful, but he’s had a proclivity for shooting the Celtics out of games when leading the second unit.

Rozier’s shooting has come down from last season and last season’s playoffs. Terry averaged 16.5 on .406/.347/.821 in the playoffs, but those numbers have fallen to 13.4 points a night on .385/.370/.714 splits this season. Like Brown, Rozier has also been a bit of a liability defensively at times.

Part of his struggles can be attributed to going back to a bench role. Rozier has been subtle in his gripes about play time, but it has felt at times like he’s pressing in an attempt to get himself a starting role either in Boston or elsewhere.