Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics is making a late charge to win the NBA MVP award. And he made his biggest statement yet on Wednesday night.
With Jayson Tatum slowly getting up to speed, Brown is still the top option on the Celtics. He led Boston to a victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in what could prove to be an NBA Finals preview. He scored 31 points in the 119-109 win, which proved to be a huge statement both for himself and his team.
Reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the comprehensive favorite to win his second consecutive award. And while he outscored Brown in the game with 33 of his own, it was the Celtics who ended up with the win.
Brown has been building momentum in recent days with his MVP candidacy being touted nationally. Both Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser vouched for him to win the award on Pardon the Interruption earlier this week.
And after beating SGA and the Thunder head-to-head, NBC Sports Boston was quick to pounce on the trends with a very clever chyron after the game.
The network put up Brown’s statline with the caption “Sure seems valuable… some might even say the most valuable.”
While Jaylen Brown is having a great week when it comes to his MVP chances, unfortunately, it hasn’t moved the needle much amongst oddsmakers. The Celtics star is still sitting at +20000 on FanDuel even after toppling the Thunder, while Gilgeous-Alexander remains the heavy favorite at -800.
Still, though, Brown might get the chance to make his case once again come playoff time if the Celtics and Thunder go head-to-head once more. And another Finals MVP and NBA championship could make for a nice consolation prize if he misses out on the regular season award.
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