Jaylen Brown has gotten off to a ridiculously hot start for the Boston Celtics this season, picking up the slack in Jayson Tatum’s absence. Brown has taken over the Celtics’ offense with Tatum sidelined, becoming the team’s top scoring option for the first time in his career. He’s flourished in his new role as Boston’s alpha dog, getting off to a historic start. Brown’s played all 18 of the Celtics’ games so far, leading them to a 10-8 record. He’s been the team’s leading scorer in nearly all of them, averaging a career-high 28.9 points per game. The 29-year-old has scored at least 30 points in half of Boston’s games this year, including a season-high 41 points against the Detroit Pistons on Oct. 26. He’s already matched his number of 30-point performances from last season (nine) in 45 fewer games. Brown’s scored at least a dozen points in every game this season and has eclipsed 20 points 15 times, racking up points at a dizzying pace. He’s now up to 507 total this year, becoming just the third player in Celtics history to score at least 500 points through the first 18 games of a season. Story continues below advertisement Tatum and John Havlicek are the other two. Surprisingly, Paul Pierce, Larry Bird and other franchise legends never did it. Brown is currently on pace for over 2,300 points, which would blow away his previous high of 1,784 from the 2022-23 campaign. Story continues below advertisement With Tatum unlikely to return until the second half of the season, the Celtics will need Brown to keep pouring in points if they want to stay competitive. In the meantime, he’ll look to stay hot this weekend in a tough road back-to-back against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Cleveland Cavaliers, where he’ll square off with two of the league’s premier scorers in Anthony Edwards and Donovan Mitchell. Story continues below advertisement