BOSTON -- The Boston Celtics’ disastrous 2018-19 season came to an end on a Wednesday in May. The dejected squad dressed quietly in a Milwaukee locker room, then flew back to Boston the next morning. A few players talked to the media, but they didn’t have any answers. Nobody really did.

The next morning, Celtics assistant coach Tony Dobbins got a text: Could he get to the practice facility? Jaylen Brown wanted to get in the gym.

Dobbins was a little incredulous at first. Immediately after the season, players are encouraged to let their bodies heal from the day-to-day grind of an 82-game-plus-playoffs season.

“We just finished the other day,” Dobbins told Brown. “You sure you don’t want to take a step away, take some time?”

Brown’s answer: “Nah. Let’s get it. Let’s get after it.”

Part of Brown’s urgency was due to his schedule. He had a trip to Egypt planned, and he wanted to make sure he got in the gym before he left in case finding a gym overseas proved difficult (ultimately, a basketball star doesn’t have much trouble finding a place to workout, even in a foreign country).

But one thing was clear: After enduring one of the strangest seasons in recent NBA memory, Brown didn’t want to waste time.

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In previous summers, Brown traveled frequently back to Atlanta for workouts. As a 12-year-old, he began his career working with Atlanta-based trainer Desmond Eastmond after Brown’s uncle Steve Bouye -- father of Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback A.J. Bouye -- introduced him to Brown’s mother. Eastmond recognized Brown’s talent, and they started training together full time during Brown’s freshman season.

When Brown was a sophomore, he was invited to a pick-up run at Georgia Tech -- an opportunity for high-school stars to play against college players (and an opportunity for the Yellow Jackets to get in the door with prospects). Brown was playing well, and a Tech player got fed up.

“One of the players pushed me because they were mad, because I was cooking him,” Brown said. “Like really, he pushed me out of the air.”

Brown landed badly and broke his ankle in two places -- a devastating setback. But Eastmond said Brown’s injury was an important moment in his development. He wanted to be on the floor, but he couldn’t. Instead, he took out his frustrations in the weight room -- adding pounds of muscle to his athletic frame.

“After those four months, he came back and he was pretty much a man amongst boys physically,” Eastmond said. “I guess that’s when the switch really flipped. ‘You know what? I’m actually one of the best players in the country.’”

The relationship between Brown and Eastmond solidified -- Eastmond believed in Brown’s talent, and Brown believed in Eastmond, in part because Eastmond could challenge Brown intellectually. One day, after learning Brown was a talented chess player, Eastmond challenged him and won. They played again. Eastmond won again.

“He’s the only person to ever beat me in chess at my peak,” Brown said, smiling. “Usually if somebody beat me the first time, you’re not beating me the second time. He beat me and he beat me again, so I give him credit. I don’t think anybody else on the planet can say that.”

Brown’s workouts with Eastmond were intense as well, of course. Eastmond worked with Brown on shooting and ball-handling, incorporating aquatics and boxing. They also watch film together, and while Eastmond trains Brown as a 3-point shooter and slasher, he wishes Brown had more opportunities to get to his mid-range game. Brown is hitting 45 percent from mid-range, according to Cleaning the Glass, which is 74th percentile at Brown’s position.

“His mid-range game is really beautiful,” Eastmond said. “I would love to see him go to that more.”

Brown spent some time in Atlanta this summer, and he played for Eastmond’s Summer League team. But unlike previous seasons, Brown had business in Boston. He was eligible for an extension, and he wanted to make a positive impression on the team’s coaches and f ront office.

“I wanted the front office, I wanted the people on the coaching staff to see my face,” Brown said. “See I’m in here, see I’m getting better so it’s easier when you’re building an offense, building a team, it’s easier to have me a part of it because I’m here all the time.”

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One of the reasons Dobbins and Brown work so well together is Dobbins’ background in basketball. Dobbins played Division I basketball for Virginia Tech and Richmond in the early 2000s before heading overseas, where he won the Pro A Best Defensive Player award three times in France.

Dobbins began in Boston’s video room as a member of Boston’s player enhancement group. When Micah Shrewsberry left the Celtics this summer for an assistant coaching job at Purdue, Stevens asked Brown which coach he would like to work with. Brown mentioned Dobbins.

“Tony’s got some stuff, man,” Brown said. “He’s got some really good stuff in his bag. He leaves no detail, no stone unturned. ... He understands it too. I only did his training, but he played the game at a high level, so he knows what I mean when I say, or he knows because he actually did the move before, which is just a little different to me than Brad (Stevens) trying to tell me something. But Tony’s really good.”

For Dobbins, the details in Brown’s game were most important. He wanted Brown to take a look around at the court right before he caught a pass, buying an extra second to read the floor. Brown’s court awareness as improved drastically as a result. They also worked on dribble hand-off reads (as best they could without having 10 people on the floor) and Brown’s left hand.

What Dobbins believed to be most important for Brown, however, wasn’t a specific skill like ball-handling, but the simple concept of making the next right play within the situation -- piecing the game together like a puzzle instead of simply reacting.

To a chess player, that made sense.

“I have the skills, I have the ability,” Brown said. “Sometimes you beat yourself up putting extra pressure on yourself. What I did best this year was taking the pressure off myself.”

As Dobbins worked with Brown, he started to notice little things that set the him apart, even from his fellow NBA players. Dobbins called Brown “fearless,” lauding his desire to get better and his willingness to fail in the pursuit of improvement. He was careful to emphasize Brown’s mindset was the driving force behind his summer improvement, rather than the workouts themselves.

“I’ve observed that when he puts his focus toward improving on something, he makes progress,” Dobbins said. “I think he just put in time to wanting to be a better ball handler, have better control, better command of the ball, what he wanted to do with the ball, getting to certain spots. … I know he would tell you that he’s not satisfied with where he is right now, and he has a longer-term vision of where he wants to be, or what he wants to be able to do. I think that’s the cool thing about him. There would be some people who may be tempted to say, ‘Oh yeah, I had some success with that, I’m good.’ But I’m certain he’s not satisfied now with where he is now and the progress he’s made.”

That’s a common theme among Brown’s trainers: Give him things to work on, and he will work on them. But ultimately, the driving force is Brown himself.

“When he first started, he wanted to be a 10-time All-Star, and I gave him some things to do, and I said, ‘This is what it takes,’” Eastmond said. “He bought in wholeheartedly to a point where I didn’t have to lead the charge no more. He was leading the charge. I was just going along for the ride.”

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Brown signed a four-year extension worth up to $115 million this offseason. Some around the league wondered about the wisdom of handing that much money to a player who appeared to stagnate in his third year.

The Celtics didn’t need to worry. Brown has put together an incredibly promising start -- 19.9 points and 6.9 rebounds per game in 17 contests while shooting 49.4 percent from the field and 38.2 from three. Even his free throw shooting is up to 71.8 percent from 65.8 percent last year. In five of his last six games, Brown has posted 22 points or more.

At a recent shoot around, an out-of-town reporter asked Brown if he felt more free without Kyrie Irving eating up touches.

“No comment, next question,” Brown said.

One of the more underrated aspects of Brown’s game is how he fits into a team’s concept. Two years ago, the Celtics needed him to step up in the playoffs with Irving and Gordon Hayward sidelined. Brown averaged 18.5 points per game and helped lead a charge to the Eastern Conference Finals that nearly produced a trip to the Finals. Last year, the Celtics needed Brown to be an energy guy off the bench, and he was one of the few players on the Celtics’ roster who could reasonably look back at the Milwaukee series without cringing at his own performance.

“He’s just going to do what the coaches ask of him,” Eastmond said. “But because he knows that ‘Boston is my home now,’ I think he’s going to just let it loose.”

Brown refused to classify last year as “frustrating.” After all, he’s a chess player. Everything is a learning experience.

“I’ve never been one to complain, complain, complain,” Brown said. “I try to take it for what it is, make the best of the situation, then the next year when I do get the opportunity I wanted, I don’t leave no room for doubt.”