Celtics’ Jaylen Brown ineligible for All-NBA after being ruled out vs.

With the Boston Celtics already locked into the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, there aren’t many intriguing storylines as the regular season winds down.

But Jaylen Brown and his nagging knee injury is one of them.

The Celtics ruled Brown out for Friday’s game against the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday afternoon, more than 24 hours before tip-off. The decision ensures that Brown, who has appeared in 63 games so far this season, won’t reach 65 games played, as Boston has just one regular-season game remaining after Friday (Sunday afternoon vs. Charlotte).

That’s notable because 65 games is the minimum threshold for players to be eligible for end-of-season NBA awards like the All-NBA and All-Defense teams, Defensive Player of the Year and more. After Friday night, Brown will be officially disqualified from those awards.

Whether Brown realistically would have made All-NBA is a separate discussion, but for a few days, it looked like the Celtics were attempting to give him a chance.

The league requires requires players to log at least 20 minutes those 65 games to be award-eligible, and Brown played 21 minutes in Boston’s rout of the Washington Wizards last Sunday despite looking slightly hobbled. He then labored through 21 minutes of Tuesday’s matchup with the New York Knicks before sitting out the entire fourth quarter and overtime of a close game.

Even when Brown didn’t play on the second night of a back-to-back in Orlando on Wednesday, it was worth wondering if he’d suit up Friday and Sunday to hit his minutes minimum before heading to the bench.

“Even though my team visibly can see maybe I’m in a bit of pain,” Brown said after the Celtics’ April 2 game against the Heat, “they trust me to go out there and I can control my body and still be able to make plays and mentally, be able to push through it.”

While there’s some value in learning how to manage pain, there’s more value in rest, and it appears Brown and the Celtics have made…