
Boston Celtics surge as Jaylen Brown’s MVP campaign heats up, but can he break into the top tier before the All-Star break? John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal breaks down Brown and Jayson Tatum’s evolving partnership, debating how their on-court chemistry and willingness to sacrifice could lead to multiple championships—or leave individual accolades just out of reach. With FanDuel odds, national narrative shifts, and key performance metrics in play, Brown’s rise sparks new questions about the Celtics’ future ceiling. The spotlight also shines on Derrick White, whose underrated showing against the Clippers signals his potential as an All-Star contributor. Discussion covers Boston’s league-leading point differential, the challenges of maintaining momentum after a long road trip, and strategic concerns ahead of their matchup with the Chicago Bulls. Is this Celtics roster built for playoff glory—or will high expectations meet a harsh postseason reality?
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John Corrales
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John Corrales
How strong is Jaylen Brown's MVP case? Plus, what does Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum look like together now and love for the most underrated player in the league right now on the Locked On Celtics Podcast. Hey there, welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics Podcast right here in the Lockdown Podcast Network. Was that jarring? I cut everything out of the open. We're just getting right to the podcast now. So sorry if that was jarring. Everybody's like, what? That is not the normal open. If you're new, you don't care. But if you're a regular listener and every day you're like, what the hell just happened? Yeah, we're getting right to the point from POD in our podcast now, so thank you for subscribing. Thank you for being here every Monday through Friday. Bonus podcast when they play on the weekends. Tons of Friday Saturday games this month, so it'll be a lot of podcasts that are available everywhere. Make sure you're subscribed. I'm John Corrales. If you're new to the show, I'm a beat writer covering the Celtics for Boston Sports Journal. I've been doing a version of this job for about 20 years now, doing this podcast for 10, and I've written a couple of books later on love for the most underrated player in the league, Derrick White, who was having the game that everybody was going to be talking about today, but he got overshadowed by Jaylen Brown, who was incredible. I brought this up before people are bringing it up, so I kind of want to touch on. This is going to be like an ongoing discussion that's going to be in the second segment about Jalen and Jason together. Jason is going to be coming back at some point, I think, before this season is over, maybe next month, maybe in March. What will that look like then? What will it look like down the line? That's going to be, I think, like I said, an ongoing discussion. But let's start it. But we're going to start with Jaylen Brown's MVP case, which is the hot topic. It's one of the trending topics on Google. People want to know, like, what his MVP case is, is. So let's just dive into that first. And let's. Let's start with the FanDuel odds. FanDuel put the. Has the MVP odds. They have Shea Gildrus Alexander and Luka doncic both at minus 450. So four and a half to one odds there. They're tied for the lead there. Then cade Cunningham at 70 to 1, Jalen Brunson at 75 to 1, and Jalen Brown at 80 to 1. So still, as far as the betting odds go, a long shot. Now, some of this is the bookmakers are saying, here are the people that we think. And then once you set that, the money comes in and kind of determines the odds. So people will look at these odds and say, Jaylen Brown at 80 to 1. Well, I'm going to put 10 bucks down on that and see if I can get myself 80, 800. Right? Yeah. So, you know, why not try that and see, it's worth the look, right? It's worth the 10 bucks for people who are like, yeah, I got 10 bucks to spare. And so the odds will start to move as more people put the money in. Odds move as the market moves. And the theory is really, I'm not a big gambling guy, but the theory is that people kind of know and the more people that are behind the momentum, then that kind of tells you, yeah, the odds are in this person's favor because everybody, if everybody knows that this person should be the mvp, then there's a good chance he should be the mvp. So the odds will move as the money comes in. But Jaylen Brown still fifth in the FanDuel odds. But when you look at the names on this list, sga, Luka Doncic, obvious names, right? SGA is the reigning mvp. Luka is, you know, an MVP type player. He's always going to be in the conversation. The Lakers are not the best team in the west necessarily, but they still have a decent record at 21 and 11. Now the Celtics are at 22 and 12. So they're right there. The odds, the records are even. The pistons are at 26 and nine. Cade Cunningham is a long shot. Jalen Brunson is on a team that currently has just, you know, one more win than the Celtics. So these next, like this next group of guys, they're all kind of in that same mix. Cade is, I think, facing the same things that Jalen would face, that both Jalen's would face. It's that the. I think first of all, when it comes to Detroit, not to turn this into like a bigger extended podcast, but people, I'm sure people aren't sure, right? There's, there's not a lot of like, I don't think people are just really fully aware of what's going on with the Pistons. Right. But Kate is a legitimate candidate. Jalen Brunson, you know, you have other guys in that team. He's obviously the most important player on that team, but you look at that as a big team effort. Now, Jay, Jaylen Brown, I think, has a legitimate case and I'm not sure where he's going to end up because when you look at that game, I think, I think that game against the Clippers was certainly a statement. Right? That was the. I didn't get the Eastern Conference player of the month. And so he went, he went nuts. And technically speaking, it wasn't all isolation. It was a lot of pick and rolls. He ran a ton of pick and roll, but it was so he can attack an individual matchup. Six of the, what do you have 18 makes in that game were assisted. And okay, maybe four of them were actually assisted. A couple of them were like those kind of crappy, crappy assists. I tweeted one out like Anthony Simons was in the back court, just threw it over to Jalen Brown so he could bring it up the court right at the opposite three point line. Jalen takes three dribbles, takes a jumper at the free throw line and Simons gets the assist. That so that. I don't count that as an assisted basket. That, that's not an actual assist, no matter what the definition says. But regardless, Jalen was doing his own thing. Of those 18 baskets, I would say 13 or so 14 were like all Jalen doing his thing, isolating off of a pick and roll, getting the matchup that he wanted and, and cooking. And if that was a national TV game, maybe there'd be a little bit of movement in that MVP line and a little bit more talk about him in the MVP odds. But you got to make these statements here, and this is like, good timing. It's early January. We've already done one of the ESPN straw polls, right? The Tim Bontemps straw poll. Jalen was down around 9th, so. So he's on the radar. The first draw poll is almost never what the final vote is. Jalen, as long as he keeps going like this. And obviously not 50 points a game. But he's averaging over 30 now. And that's step one to be an MVP candidate. Having that 30 in front of your, you know, it's so much better. 30.1 is so much better than 29.9. Just saying you are. You are averaging 30. That right there is okay. He. He takes that step through the doorway and kind of announces himself. When you look at, okay, SGA on the Thunder, sure, he's, he's their best player, but also the Thunder of the defending champs. And you know, you have a bunch of guys on that team that are really good. And you can say SGA is the obvious head of the snake there, but they're the champs. They've got all these good players. You can make an argument that is. Is a better. Obviously, it's obviously a better team. There's better talent around SGA to give him the space and opportunity to do what he does. You look at Luca, Well, Luca, I think might have a better case because the Lakers supporting cast, I mean, it's still LeBron, but as people start to accept LeBron isn't who he was, there's I think, a little bit more of the Luka magic that people are going to start to look at and say, well, the reason they're any good is, is because of Luca and almost exclusively Luka. But Luka doesn't play any defense. I don't care how thin he's gotten, he still has not played a lick of defense. And when you look at Jalen Brown, Jalen is averaging 30, but he is playing defense now. He's been able to pass off some of those responsibilities to Jordan Walsh, which is nice and tell, you know, Josh Minot at times and Ugo Gonzalez, and that's great. But he also takes on those responsibilities and is is very much capable and Bobby Marks put out a stat which I don't have it in front of me but basically that Jalen is, is one of the best, maybe the second best defender as far as opponent field goal percentage when he's the closest defender. And it's always a little kind of tricky with that. But the bottom line is Bobby Marks from ESPN is tweeting out a stat about Jalen's defense and okay, well sga SGA plays defense but not to, not to Jaylen Brown's level. Luca plays no defense at all. And Jalen's out there scoring 30 points a game, leading the Celtics to a 65% win pace, a 53 win pace. If Jalen continues at this clip, that 30, somewhere around 30 points per game, somewhere around the five or six assists, you know, if he's in the same stratosphere and you know by the All Star break, the conversation is going to change the conversation around the Celtics. I think what's happening with the Celtics right now is there's still, there's still a little bit of like, let's just wait and see a little bit longer because the Celtics haven't hit a skid. They haven't hit any sort of road bump like speed bump. They, they are, we need to see just a little bit more sustained Celtics greatness before I think people start to believe in Jalen is doing this. This is real. The Celtics are going to be the third seed. So I think there's a strong chance that Jalen gets himself into that top three conversation by the All Star break. But it's going to take like January to kind of prove it right. And so as I said in yesterday's show, the bonus podcast, don't give him any awards, don't give him any player of the weeks, don't give him any player of the months, don't give him anything. Just keep giving him something to rail against. Because if he keeps going like this and keeps feeling he has something to prove, he, he could, he could interject himself in into this conversation. OkC as they start to lose a little bit more, right? They're 30 and 6. As they start to kind of drift away from that 70 win conversation, they start getting down to a little bit more normal. Hey, they're a good team. They're a defending champion. They might win 60 games, but like that's a little bit more normal as that starts to fade now that they've lost all those games to the San Antonio spurs as, as the Thunders start to get back to normal and maybe they hit some January doldrums. If that happens and they start to like lose a couple here, go on a couple of like two, three game losing streaks. Then if the Celtics keep their, their momentum going, then you start to be like, okay, maybe, maybe there's something here, maybe there's something here with Jaylen Brown. So Jalen's not in like at this point, a legitimate, as far as I don't think the voters are going to put him in their top three. But give it, give it to the All Star break. If the Celtics are still winning 60 something percent of their games by the All Star break and if OKC starts to fade and I don't think the Lakers are going to keep doing what they're doing, I think they're going to fade a little bit too. They're the only team in the top eight in the west with a negative point differential. That's usually a sign that they're going to, they're going to kind of fade a little bit. As long as, as long as those trends start to continue. And OKC, 6 and 4 in their last 10. If they start to fade and the Celtics start to, you know, continue to be here, Second seed, third seed, all star break. Jaylen Brown starts getting some real MVP buzz, real MVP buzz. What does that mean for him and Jason Tatum. Jason Tatum has been the guy that's been in the top five mvp. Let's get into what those two might look together now that Jalen has elevated his game so much. That is coming up next. Today's show is brought to you by prizepix. Whether you're starting a new routine or jumping into player projections for the first time, trying something new can feel like a challenge. But with prize picks, it always feels good to be right. With high pressure football matchups every weekend and elite hoops action almost every night, the action never slows down and Prizepix lets you stay in control. Prizepix is the daily fantasy app that makes watching sports even more exciting by letting you build lineups based on player projections. There's no draft, there's no waiting. Just pick more or less and play your way. 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John Corrales
Thank you for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. Thank you for being an everydayer joining me every Monday through Friday plus those bonus podcasts like the little 15 minute show I dropped on Saturday. Now join the Lockdown Celtics every day or club. You get access to ad free audio on any app, Apple Podcast, Spotify. Every other major podcast app allows for that so you don't have to change your routine. You get access to our group chat on the Discord server and merchandise drops. You go to lockdown celtics.supercast.com lockdown celtics.supercast dot com to join the Lockdown Celtics every day or club. Check it out. Five bucks a month or if you want to pay up front, 50 bucks a year. You save a couple of months there. So love to see you there. All right, let's get to Jalen, who I think by the end of the season, if things keep going, assuming that he stays healthy and the Celtics keep on going at this clip, he will be in the MVP conversation. Now I still expect just because I'm trying to be real and honest with people, I still expect the Celtics to hit a little bit of a dip because every team does. We haven't seen anybody sprain an ankle, pull a hamstring or anything like that. I'm not trying to jinx anybody, but this is the reality. So I still think the Celtics are probably due for a little bit of a dip. But if they don't hit that dip, if this is just who they are and how they play and they get some of that injury Injury, luck to, you know, continue to be good for this team, then I think Jalen will be in the MVP conversation for sure. For sure. Now, Jayson Tatum is the Celtics MVP candidate, right? He has been. Now you have two guys that are proven to be in the conversation, Right. Jalen should finish no worse than fifth in the voting. Right. And I think it'll be better, assuming this is January. Right. We haven't even gotten through half of the season, so we don't know how this is going to go. Things can change in a hurry. And by the time we get to. This is the January 5th show, February 5th, March 5th. We have very different conversations on February 5th and March 5th. We don't know what's going to happen, but if this trend continues, Jaylen Brown's going to be in that probably. You know, I don't. Will he win? I can't rule out the fact that he might win. He might win the mvp. He might maybe second, maybe third. Jalen Brown. Jason Tatum is going to come back. He's the guy that the Celtics have relied on to be the mvp. So what happens when they play together? This is going to be an interesting thing. Now, when Jason comes back, it's going to be a little bit different because he's going to be feeling himself out, and the Celtics do need to give him the room. Like, that's why I've wanted him to come back this season. And this kind of sucks to say now because The Celtics are 22 and 12, and they are a half game out of second. And this is the type of, like, they have the best point differential in the league. I mean, some of these blowouts have done some. Some heavy lifting there, but they still remain a very good offensive team. So for me to say, like, this season doesn't matter, it's hard for me still to imagine that in a playoff series, the Celtics will be able to do the things they need to do to get through a playoff series. I don't want to. I don't want to, you know, be a downer. I don't want to be a downer here. The Celtics have an amazing regular season. Playoffs are different. And I do think the Celtics are a little bit more limited in the adjustments that they can make when a team can game plan and kind of set, like, change what they do. The Celtics don't have a lot of options right now, so I still am not, like, as great as they are. I'm still not sold on a deep playoff run, but that's okay. It doesn't Matter. It's okay. It's okay. If they don't make a deep playoff run, it's still there. They were never built to be a deep playoff team, but we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens when Jason comes back. Maybe Jason helps him make a big playoff run. But Jason coming back still has to get himself. Like, there's a priority in getting one of your two superstars back to being a superstar. And part of why he should come back this season is to knock off the rust, figure out what he can and can't do, and now add that extra layer of how do you and Jaylen Brown play together? Because that's going to change. Jalen is no longer. Should no longer be the stand in the corner guy. Create some space and, you know, use your gravity to give space to Jason Tatum and let Jason make the plays. Jalen can make the plays. Like, now you can run some of those plays that you ran for Jason, you can run them for Jalen. You can kind of mix and match and you can kind of. It gives you more options. You get two guys on the floor that can break down a matchup, that can make the right playoff, that matchup, that have the right mentality, that have the skills. They are going to have to figure out, like, Jalen is going to have to sacrifice. He's going to have to take a step backward. But so is Jason. Jason can't come back and be Jayson Tatum of Luke last year, the year before. He has to take a step backward. Collectively, they will be able to take a step forward as a team by doing that. But if you want to capitalize on this, if you want to get that second championship, hey, maybe a third championship. If you want to get multiple championships out of this, you have to understand one very important thing here, guys. You don't have a whole lot of time, so you got to figure this out. So not only is Jason Tatum's return going to be important for shaking off the rust, can I still move the way I used to? Can I, you know, what do I need to work on over the summer to get myself back to peak Jason Tatum? You guys have to figure out how do we play with one another, what new Jalen Brown skills translate moving forward, what Jason Tatum skills need to kind of adapt. How do you need to work with one another? The second apron is going to tear this team apart. At some point, they are going to get too expensive. Jaylen Brown will be 30 next year. He is at the tail end of his career. You know, in terms of, like, segments, right? Like, he's 30 to 34, 35. He came into the league as a, what, 19, 20 year old. So you get that first five year segment, boom, second five year segment, 25 to 30 prime years that is ending soon. Now you go from 30 to 35. He has said, he said it on Derek White's podcast. I don't know if he's going to go past 34, 35 years old. Like, 34, 35 is probably going to be when Jalen Brown retires. He doesn't want to play till he's 40 something. He said it now. That might change, but he said it. So time is ticking. Time is running out for this version of the Celtics. Jayson Tatum is at the, you know, he's in his prime, but, like, that's not going to last forever. Decisions are going to have to be made here. So you have a very short window, guys, two, three years tops to try to win another championship or more, if you can do it. But that's going to be very difficult. How they will look together, it depends on them being honest with themselves and being honest, like, with each other. And they got to sit down and work it out. They have to, like, Jason is going to have to spot up. Jayson Tatum's gonna have to spot up in the corner sometimes. They're gonna have to run end of play, end of game plays for Jalen. They're gonna have to run for, you know, both of those guys. You're gonna run like ghost screens with Jalen and Jason. They're gonna have to do that stuff for one another. So how they're gonna look together, we'll continue that conversation deep, deep dives into all of that. As this season progresses, the off season, next season is going to be an ongoing conversation. We're gonna have, like dozens of podcasts, kind of like hashing that out. But the one thing I know is these two guys better figure it out. They better understand that individually, it doesn't matter what you do anymore. Maybe neither of these guys ever wins an MVP because they each have to sacrifice. But if they each come out of this with two rings, three rings, Legends. They're already legends. But, like, they go into Larry Bird territory. They're, you know, we're talking about these guys in terms of Larry Bird as far as the records, but we're going to be talking about these guys in terms of debates. Where in the top five do these guys fit? Right? Mount Rushmore stuff. If you can get a second championship, if you can get A third championship. Oh, my God. But at least one more multiple championships for the Celtics. I mean, they're each going to have to sacrifice for sure. All right, let's wrap up the show by giving Derrick White some love. He didn't get enough love after that amazing game against the Clippers. We'll talk about that when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by Quo. It's a new year, new systems, and this is the time of year when a lot of us look at the messier parts of how you run your business. And you think there has to be a better way. And there is. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest upgrades you can make. And that's why we bring you Quo. It's spelled Q U O. The smarter way to run your business communications. Because when your team is reachable, organized, and communicating in one place, you're not just working cleaner, you're creating more opportunities to connect with customers. Your whole team can call and text from one shared business number, so nothing gets missed. 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We got you covered. It's all right there. Derrick White. I feel like I want to make sure that D. White gets the proper love for what he did against the Clippers because it was the Derrick White show in the first half. And if you missed my, my bonus podcast, the little 15 minute podcast that I dropped on Saturday, I tried to give him some love, but I want to do it again. We want to be clear that the big story out of that obviously was Jaylen Brown's 50 and we're talking about him in terms of an MVP. But that first half belonged to Derek White. He comes out right away and hits that left corner, left wing three above the break and just starts hitting the pull up jumpers. Derrick White hitting pull up jumpers is a completely different animal here for the Celtics. It's the one thing that he's had the most problems with. And I did a whole thing on Boston Sports Journal kind of reevaluating all of the players. And I think the, the biggest issue for, for Derek has been the incredible change in his responsibilities where what he, what he had done in his first few years with the Celtics changed. It's completely flipped on his head now. The good thing is that it is temporary. What he's asked to do this year, he won't be asked to do next year because Tatum is back and Jalen is going to be better. And so Derek goes back to more of his spot up. But this, this season he's spend. He's spending about 35% of his time as a pick and roll ball handler and 20. About 24% of his time spotting up this season. Last season it was flipped. 34% of his time spotting up and 23% as the pick and roll ball handler. Now as the pick and roll ball handler, he's averaging less than one point per possession. One is the kind of like the magic number, right? Jalen, as the pick and roll ball handler is at one point.060. Shea Gilgis Alexander is at one point about almost 1.2. So that is. So it's still good than 964 points per possession. Still good, but it's not where it needs to be. And as a spot up guy, he's at, he's at one point, just a one point, three or so points per possession last season. Well, let's see, this season is a little over. One point is here because I know reading off stats on a podcast is the most exciting thing that you can listen to. Point is that the change in his responsibilities has changed. I think the types of points that he scored, his, his shooting has suffered a little bit and he won't be doing that nearly as much next year because Jason and Jalen are going to be handling a lot more of that and Derek will go back to spotting up and attacking off of, you know, you know, closeouts and he'll be I think back to the D white that we have remembered. But when he hits these jumpers, the pull up jumpers, the evaluation of him changes. Like right now I saw him as a potential all star who was holding back because of fitting in with Jalen and Jason and I think he might be just a step below that where he's still obviously a very good player capable of some all star type games. But I don't know, I just don't know if he's ever going to make an all star team. Which borderline all star is still an amazing basketball player who's going to have a nice long career and make tens and tens of millions of dollars and live a very, very comfortable, happy life being known as one, one of the like really, really good basketball players of his generation. Like he, he's, he, he's. Nothing changes the fact that he's really good. It's just how good is he is is the question. And you know, the situation that a player is in changes the opinion that you have of the player because of what he's asked to do. If a guy is asked to do certain things, like Klay Thompson was never asked to dribble or do all. He just sat there and shot and became one of the best shooters of all time and is considered like a legend. He had multiple championships to show for it and was a huge part of everything that Golden State did. If he was asked to handle the ball in the pick and roll, who knows if Klay Thompson would have been a mid level guy. You know, like that type of stuff is important situation matters. And so Derek next season going back to a more comfortable role, I think will will elevate his game a little bit. But what he did against the Clippers was hitting those pull up jumpers. If, if, if he can get those pull up jumpers to fall at a better clip, at a, at a, an average clip and above average clip. If this is the beginning of a turnaround and he starts hitting the pull up jumpers more consistently, well now, well now, now maybe all star becomes part of the conversation. Maybe all star. Look again. The Celtics are sitting there knocking on the door of a second seed and they've got the best point differential in the NBA. I mean in the east, second, third best in the NBA. They are one of the best offenses in the league. They have an MVP candidate. This, this could be a team that may deserve two all stars. And if Derrick White can start hitting these shots, he's not going to get the popular vote. But if he spends January hitting pull up jumpers. Listen, the, the, the player vote and the coaches vote, the media vote, whoever votes that, that can change the conversation in a hurry. What he did against the Clippers was incredible and he deserves a ton of Credit. He was 8 of 13 in the first half, scored 23 points. Kind of stepped out of the way in the second half to let Jalen cook. But Jalen was kind of the one, a story in, in the first half. Derek was the guy that was leading everything and I was prepared to write all about Derrick White after that game. Then Jalen did what he did and you know, obviously the conversation changed. But Derrick White was huge in that game shooting, you know, 50% from the field, 42% from three that you know, seven assists, a couple more blocks, another steal. So three stocks for him. That's the type of performance. If he continues to do that and he's slowly been getting his numbers back up. The pull up, it's all about the pull up jumpers. If he's hitting those pull up jumpers, then we're talking about potential all star Derrick White. If he's not hitting those pull up jumpers then he's going to go into these slumps. He's going to be up and down. But yeah. So Derek gets a little extra love for his performance against the Clippers. Next up, the Celtics play the Chicago Bulls. Again, first game back from a long road trip, always problematic. And I think the Celtics traveled on Sunday so you know, they tried to get their, their sleep so they weren't flying across country. Red eye, you know, but there's a, obviously time zone changes. That first game back is always a problem. Almost always a problem. So I'm not going to set my expectations too high. With Chicago, but it's still the Bulls. And so who knows? Who knows. But I will be at that game. I will be. I will have a post game podcast for that as I will for every game. So when they play on Friday this weekend, I think they have Friday Saturday game this weekend. So I will be there. I will be podcasting after those games as well. Free, available everywhere, so make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcast, watch the show on YouTube if you want to become part of the Everydayer Club. Five bucks a month or fifty bucks for the year. You get ad free audio on any podcast thing, any major podcasting app that you want. You get access to our game chat on the Discord server. You get access to merchandise drops. It's all there, so check it out@lockdownceltics.supercast.com you can get the links in the show Notes and now I would love it if you shared the podcast and told everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team every day. We've all been there. You hold onto a coupon but forget about it and suddenly it's Expired. Expired in 2012. Dang it. Fortunately, by switching to Geico, you could save about $900 on car insurance without ever touching a coupon. It feels good to save big. It feels good to geico. Saving on your education should be a right, not a competition. At University of Phoenix, you'll get the best scholarship or savings you qualify for. Simple as that. Explore scholarship options at University of Phoenix.
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Episode Title: MVP? Does Jaylen Brown REALLY have a chance? | How does Jayson Tatum change things?
Date: January 5, 2026
Host: John Karalis (Boston Sports Journal)
Key Themes: Jaylen Brown’s MVP candidacy, the evolving Tatum-Brown dynamic, and Derrick White’s underrated impact
John Karalis breaks down the burgeoning MVP case for Jaylen Brown, examining where he stands in league perception and what still stands in his way. The conversation then shifts to the anticipated return of Jayson Tatum and how Brown’s emergence may redefine the superstar duo’s on-court relationship. Karalis closes by celebrating Derrick White’s overlooked excellence, particularly following a standout performance against the Clippers.
Timestamps: [01:26] – [16:40]
FanDuel Odds & Current Standing
Recent Performances Elevate Case
“Of those 18 baskets, I would say 13 or so, 14 were like all Jalen doing his thing, isolating off of a pick and roll, getting the matchup that he wanted and, and cooking.” — John Karalis [06:01]
Why Brown Belongs in the Conversation
Media & Public Perception
Celtics’ Success Key to MVP Case
“Don’t give him any awards, don’t give him any player of the weeks... Just keep giving him something to rail against.” [11:33]
Timestamps: [16:40] – [32:47]
Tatum’s Imminent Return
Re-defining Roles and Sacrifice
“Jalen is going to have to take a step backward. But so is Jason. Jason can’t come back and be Jayson Tatum of last year, the year before. He has to take a step backward. Collectively, they will be able to take a step forward as a team by doing that.” — John Karalis [20:47]
Urgency of the Championship Window
Legacy Implications
“Maybe neither of these guys ever wins an MVP because they each have to sacrifice. But if they each come out of this with two rings, three rings, legends. ...We’re going to be talking about these guys in terms of Larry Bird as far as the records...” [27:45]
Timestamps: [32:47] – [38:00]
Clippers Game Breakdown
Changing Role & Statistical Impact
All-Star Potential
Praise for Consistency
On Brown’s MVP Surge:
“He’s averaging over 30 now. And that’s step one to be an MVP candidate...You are averaging 30. That, right there, is...he takes that step through the doorway and kind of announces himself.” — John Karalis [08:55]
On Defensive Impact:
“Bobby Marks put out a stat...that Jalen is one of the best, maybe the second best, defender as far as opponent field goal percentage when he’s the closest defender...the bottom line is, Bobby Marks from ESPN is tweeting out a stat about Jalen’s defense.” [09:50]
On the Tatum-Brown Future:
“You don’t have a whole lot of time, so you gotta figure this out. So...if you want to capitalize on this...you have to understand one very important thing here, guys. You don’t have a whole lot of time.” [25:20]
On Derrick White’s Quiet Importance:
“If he can get those pull up jumpers to fall at a better clip...and he starts hitting the pull up jumpers more consistently, maybe all star becomes part of the conversation.” [34:33]
For full discussions, deep dives into Celtics strategy, and real-time analysis, subscribe to Locked On Celtics with John Karalis on all podcast platforms.