Defending Brown, Embiid key to Boston Celtics-Philadelphia 76ers series, says Grimes

How does one guard star Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown? According to Philadelphia 76ers guard Quentin Grimes, with everything you have and then some. Asked about guarding the Georgia native heading into Game 6 of the Celtics' 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs first round series, Grimes replied , "just lock him in.

" "He's ... been a top five player, MVP candidate this whole season," explained Grimes. "So I'm just trying to be as disruptive as possible, make it as hard as I can on him.

He's a good player, he's going to make some tough shots, but as long as I make it as tough as possible, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job on him so far this series. " In Game 5 in particular, Grimes forced Brown into foisting a late-clock prayer after tipping into the backcourt on a possession in the second half that helped to stymie a late attempts by the Celtics to close out the series at home. But it has not just been Brown who has been hard to guard in recent games in this series.

"He's a matchup nightmare," said Grimes of his frontcourt teammate Joel Embiid. "He's going to command double-teams every night, so we've got to be ready to either make a slide cut, make the right read, try to get in the gap where (they) can't see us, so we can be ready to knock down open shots. " "Because they're going to double, somebody's going to be wide open, and we've got to be ready to be able to make that available for him so he can find us and then knock down an easy shot.