BOSTON – Celtics wing Jaylen Brown returned from a right hamstring strain Thursday night, and right away he put it to the test.
Thirty-six seconds after checking into Game 2 against the Philadelphia 76ers, Brown scrambled for a loose ball, picked it up at mid-court, ran full-speed ahead, euro-stepped around an opponent and blasted off for a rim-shaking dunk.
All the while, the crowd at TD Garden collectively held its breath.
“I did everything to kind of aggravate it,” Brown said of the first-quarter play. “I bent down, stopped, accelerated, picked up the ball and exploded up for the dunk.