A night earlier, Jaylen Brown posted a video on Twitter of himself, dunking an alley-oop pass from a friend — in his driveway, in the snow, at twilight.
Brown clearly brought that cold with him last night into the Garden, where the Celtics shot 40.4 percent and Minnesota made 36.8 percent of its hoists, but with their defense willing these frigid conditions were in the host team’s favor.
So what if the Celtics’ starting five shot a collective 33.3 percent (20-for-60), their reserve backcourt combination of Terry Rozier and Marcus Smart accounted for 14 and 18 points, respectively, with a combined 14-for-24 from the field.