Bruce Brown Is the Nets’ ‘Swiss Army Knife’

With all that Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden can do, it might seem like they don’t need any help on the Nets. But Brown has played a key role this season.

Brad Simpson, who has been the boys’ basketball coach at Wakefield Memorial High School in a Boston suburb for decades, first met Nets guard Bruce Brown at an informal summer workout before Brown entered eighth grade. “He looks awful, so spindly. His legs are like pipe cleaners,” Simpson recalled. But then Brown started shooting baskets to warm up. “The third time through, he throws it down like a monster jam. I almost fell out of the bleachers.” Selected by the Detroit Pistons in the second round, with the 42nd overall pick, of the 2018 N.B.A. draft, Brown, who grew up in Dorchester, hasn’t forgotten where he came from. The Nets are facing the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs, and the teams will play at TD Garden on Friday in Game 3. The Nets lead the best-of-seven series, 2-0. But this won’t be the first trip back home for Brown, 24.