Why is Jaylen Brown wearing a mask? All you need to know

As Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics take to the court for Game 1 of the NBA Playoffs, fans are wondering, 'Why is Jaylen Brown wearing a mask?'

Back in early February, when the Boston Celtics played the Philadelphia 76ers on Feb. 8, Brown suffered a pretty serious facial fracture. Despite the injury, he remained single-mindedly focused on helping the team reach the NBA Finals again.

Brown ended up missing four straight games for the Celtics, returning on Feb. 19 with the mask that he has continued to wear ever since.

As he said in an interview with NBC Sports Boston, it takes weeks for the injury to heal:

“I think it’s not fully healed. I think what they said, like, you got like six weeks until the cartilage starts to grow back so you’re, I guess, safe if you were to take another hit. But you still got like another six weeks before I guess it fully gets back to where it is or where it's supposed to be.”

Does Jaylen Brown plan to continue wearing the mask?

Given that he suffered the injury back in February, the twelve-week timeline to get back to 100% he’s notably coming up on the date where he would no longer have to wear the mask. Despite that, he revealed that he will probably continue to do so given that his mom wants him to continue wearing it for his safety.

“I guess technically, I got like a couple more days or I don't have to wear it anymore if I didn’t want to,” he said. “But if you wanna be safe, they say, you keep wearing it. My mom wants me to wear it, so I'll probably keep wearing it.”

Of course, with how dominant the Boston Celtics have looked during the regular season, Jaylen Brown is likely looking ahead at a long playoff run wearing the mask. After coming up short in the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors last season, Brown and the team find themselves surging into the postseason.

In their last 10 games of the regular season, the Celtics went 8-2, ending the year on a three- game win streak. In addition, they also managed to position themselves just one game behind the Milwaukee Bucks, giving them the second-best record in the NBA.

With the team currently trouncing the Atlanta Hawks at the half, only time will tell whether Jaylen Brown continues to wear the mask throughout the rest of the Playoffs.