If Jaylen Brown wasn’t already forcing his way back into the MVP conversation, Thursday night should have done the trick.

The Boston Celtics (43-23) fell just short against the Oklahoma City Thunder (52-15) in a 104-102 thriller, but Brown delivered another reminder of the kind of season he has quietly been putting together.

Facing the league’s best team and one of the NBA’s toughest defenses - and doing so without Jayson Tatum - Brown carried the Celtics offensively with 34 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists.

It was the latest example of a theme that has defined Boston’s season.

Brown has spent much of the year serving as the team’s primary engine while Tatum recovered from Achilles surgery. And rather than simply maintaining the Celtics’ status near the top of the Eastern Conference, he has elevated his own game in the process.

The numbers alone tell a compelling story.

Brown is averaging 28.4 points, 7.1 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game - career-best production across the board while taking on a significantly larger offensive workload. He has expanded his playmaking, carried Boston through long stretches of the season without its other superstar, and kept the Celtics firmly planted near the top of the East despite roster turnover and months of uncertainty.

Even with those numbers, Brown has struggled to gain traction in the national MVP conversation.

According to polling done by ESPN, he’s currently sixth in the race and did not receive a single first or second-place vote.

Speaking recently on a podcast with Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady, Brown acknowledged that the award would mean something to him, but suggested the criteria often feels like a moving target.

“I feel like I fit the criteria for it,” Brown told the NBA legends. “But people constantly move the bar.”

Thursday’s performance won’t suddenly vault him ahead of players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic or Victor Wembanyama, all of whom are putting together historically dominant seasons of their own.

But it does reinforce something Celtics fans have watched unfold for months.

Brown hasn’t just kept Boston afloat. He’s carried them.

And on nights like Thursday, when the stage gets bigger and the margin gets thinner, he continues to play like a legitimate MVP candidate.

At some point, the rest of the basketball world will recognize…right?

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Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.