“I’m hoping to feel better and better. But there’s no guarantee that rest or anything like that is going to make this thing better,” said Jaylen Brown after a matchup last week. The Boston Celtics are among those teams that are carrying the expectation to win the championship this year. After all, doing so would allow the team to record its first two-peat since winning the 1968 and 1969 seasons.

Unfortunately, their odds have taken a hit amidst reports that Brown has been receiving pain management injections to treat the bone bruise with posterior impingement that has been affecting his right knee since mid-February. Having missed the last 2 games, and a total of 12 games this season due to the injury, one question is now being asked by all: Will Brown participate in the playoffs?

ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne was the one who reported the update about Brown’s recent injections. She also revealed that the player is expected to be ready for the start of the Celtics’ first-round playoff series by either April 19 or 20. Jaylen Brown had reportedly made plans to undergo extra treatment ahead of the playoffs for a while.

Last week, the player said he was optimistic that the medical staff’s treatment plan would help him feel better ahead of the postseason. In his own words, “I bank on being by the playoffs — we got some stuff lined up — I bank on being even better than I feel now”.

For the majority of the current NBA season, Jaylen Brown has performed at the same level as he did during the team’s championship season last year. In recent weeks, however, as the season has been winding down, the 4x NBA All-Star has looked more and more affected by the injury. This is unfortunate. After all, having averaged 22.2 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 4.5 assists throughout 63 games, Brown has become the team’s 2nd highest scorer this season.

Even Michael Jordan struggled in the early part of the iconic 1997-98 Chicago Bulls season while Scottie Pippen was recovering from his injury. Therefore, without Brown, Jayson Tatum and Co. will have a major struggle ahead of them. Especially since their first round matchup series will be against the Orlando Magic, aka the team against whom the Celtics have lost 6 of their last 10 games, including the most recent one.

Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla had placed Brown on a minutes restriction for a while. However, the player slowly worked his way back up to about 30 minutes per night before this week. In the coach’s own words, “We just got what we needed to get out of him as he continues to push himself and test himself. We still got games left so we got what we needed to get, what we needed to see and we’ll just continue to move forward.”

Updates reveal that Jaylen Brown can probably give his all during the postseason. However, a new question that now arises is: Should he? After all, both analysts and Brown’s teammate have raised their respective concerns by looking at the bigger picture.

Kristaps Porzingis and Kevin O’Connor want Jaylen Brown benched in the postseason’s early games: “he needs to take care of it”

Being the team’s 3rd highest scorer, no one might appreciate Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum more than Kristaps Porzingis. After all, they take the scoring pressure away from him and allow him to score however he wishes. At the same time, Porzingis would also know when the pressure gets to his teammates. Therefore, having observed Brown’s injury from a teammate’s perspective, the Latvian said what many Celtics fans would not want to hear. The fact that Brown needs rest.

“He’s a tough dude. He always preaches his warrior mindset. He lives by it. But to what extent do we need that right now? Maybe he needs to take care of it and make sure he’s going to be ready for the most important moment,” said Porzingis, as reported by Ramona Shelburne. “I think we need to encourage him to make sure he does everything he needs to prepare to get it healthy and to prepare for what’s going to come.”

Kristaps Porzingis wasn’t the only one to hold this opinion. Renowned NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor, in a recent segment of his show, highlighted that the bone bruise is causing Brown to not move the same “laterally on defense”. Furthermore, it is making the player “more stagnant on offense”, and is simply making him not look healthy. This is why the analyst said, “I think Jaylen Brown should sit until the 2nd round of the playoffs. They, they’re not gonna need him in the 1st round, regardless of who the opponent is from the playing. They won’t need him until round 2.”

Do you think that Jaylen Brown should skip the first round of the playoffs? Or should he be there from the start, even in his condition, to ensure that the Celtics have a good start to the post-season? Let us know in the comments section down below.