CHICAGO — For all of the shots Payton Pritchard drilled while blazing down the Bulls on Friday night, Joe Mazzulla expressed more love for an offensive rebound the Celtics guard earned during his fourth-quarter takeover.
Following a Jayson Tatum missed free throw with about four minutes left in Boston’s 138-129 win, Pritchard timed his jump perfectly to beat Lonzo Ball and Nikola Vucevic to the board. The smallest guy on the court should not have come down with that ball, but Pritchard has made a career of shedding every limitation his height could have placed on him. That’s why, no matter what anyone asks Mazzulla about Pritchard, the coach almost always seems to circle back to his belief that Pritchard is a complete player.
“The key to him is he finds different ways to impact games,” Mazzulla said Friday. “He’s grown as a player over the course of his career. Tonight it was his shooting, but that rebound he got was timely. And just his ball pressure and his defense. So he’s a complete player.”
If Mazzulla says it enough, maybe everyone will realize it. But for as much as Pritchard impacts the Celtics in other ways, the team has also asked him to become more of a scorer. Before the season started, Pritchard said the Boston coaches informed him they wanted him to play with more freedom. After he showed off his well-rounded game in a breakout campaign last season, they wanted him to look for his own offense more aggressively. Even with every key player back from last season’s championship team, Mazzulla intended to find ways for the Celtics to evolve. Unleashing Pritchard has paid off already. Already valuable in his previous role, an even greener light has transformed him into one of the league’s most ignitable players — and, his teammates seem to agree, an early front-runner for the Sixth Man of the Year award.
Pritchard’s blossoming powers crystalized again Friday as he took down the Bulls with 19 points during the first 6:35 of the fourth quarter. After slow starts to the final three quarters, the Celtics trailed by four points early in the fourth when Pritchard seized control. He started his streak by popping in a 27-foot 3-pointer from the left wing. He followed up that first bucket by scoring on each of the Celtics’ next two possessions, first with a long 3-pointer from the other wing and then with a hesitation move past Josh Giddey.
Even at that point, Pritchard said he didn’t realize he had entered another hot spell in an early season full of them.
“I really just thought I was just taking good shots,” Pritchard said. “I didn’t really realize I was on a heater or anything until probably I hit that deep one when they switched. Vucevic was on me, Zach LaVine dropped back and I hit it from deep after Sam (Hauser) slipped out on the screen. That’s kind of how I knew I had it going.”
Pritchard finished with a season-high 29 points, including 19 points on 7-for-8 shooting in the fourth quarter. He made five 3-pointers in the decisive period, all during a 21-10 run that turned a four-point Boston deficit into a seven-point lead. While he scored all but two of the Celtics’ points during that flurry, his teammates continued to look for him time after time.
Pritchard carried the Celtics after they lost Derrick White to a sore foot. Though White did not address reporters after the game, Mazzulla said the guard told him he will be fine. White was seen walking without any wrap or brace on his foot in the Boston locker room.
Only a truly confident player would command more and more responsibilities as Pritchard has on a team loaded with current and former All-Stars. Pritchard, averaging 15.6 points per game this season, doesn’t just want the ball. He has turned himself into enough of a force that his most established teammates, including Tatum and Jaylen Brown, want him to have the ball. The fourth-quarter run materialized because Brown allowed it to happen. He fed Pritchard for his first two 3-pointers during the stretch, then took a step back so Pritchard could ride out his hot hand.
“JB was finding me,” Pritchard said. “I hit two 3s and then they were pressing up and I got to the rim one time. So I just knew the flow was good. They were pressing up so I was going to be able to get what I wanted.”
At least publicly, Pritchard has never doubted himself. His unshakable self-belief carried him to an All-America career at Oregon. It allowed him to step into an immediate role as a rookie with the Celtics. It kept him afloat when Malcolm Brogdon took his minutes during the 2021-22 season and enabled him to bounce back the following season after Boston traded Brogdon. The Celtics did that partially because they thought Pritchard could handle the backup point guard role. He has thrived in it since — though, when trying to explain his faith in himself, he actually remembered his rocky start to last season.
“My confidence has always been there,” Pritchard said. “It’s funny, if you go back a year (ago), like, what were my stats and numbers? I think I was awful. I think I had five straight games where I didn’t score at the beginning of last year (he actually started the season by going scoreless in four of the first seven games). But it’s not like riding those lows or the highs. It’s just maintaining this balance of just a strong belief and showing up every day, working and keep getting better and better and better. Ultimately, things will turn out to be good for you. So this is, for me, it’s just maintaining that confidence.”
His teammates have all seen it. Pritchard earned their trust through years of proving himself on the court, not just in games but also in the practice facility where he works as hard as anyone. Tatum said Pritchard’s tenacity stood out even when they competed against each other as teenagers.
“We were in the same high school class, so I’ve been seeing that fearless, competitive nature ever since we were like 13,” Tatum said. “It’s been pretty cool to see him grow into the player that he is and being effective on a championship team. The things that he’s doing, he’s Sixth Man of the Year-worthy for me.”
The benefits of Pritchard’s work ethic didn’t arrive all at once but have continued to let him progress through the ups and downs of his career. The other Celtics, who have witnessed his development throughout the years, could see this coming.
“Just seeing him put in the work every day,” Tatum said. “You’ve gotta earn the respect of your teammates. We’ve all had to do it that was in the league before him. And you do that by showing up every day. Everybody does a great job of getting their treatment, getting their recovery, getting in the weight room. P’s always working out on the court. Preseason, he’s always playing one-on-one and trying to get up extra shots. We see the work that he puts in and we trust him to make the right plays.”
The Celtics easily could have lost Friday, with rough stretches in every quarter but the first one forcing them to come back several times. Kristaps Porziņģis said their defense was “far from ideal” and allowed the Bulls, including Vucevic, to catch fire. The big man scored 32 points on 11-for-16 shooting, including 6-for-9 from behind the arc.
Pritchard burned brighter when it mattered most.
“The way he was hooping at one point was just unbelievable to watch,” Porziņģis said. “And he’s capable of that. That’s why I think for the opposite teams it’s usually an emphasis to try to stop him. When he comes in with that second unit, he’s just so explosive and he can turn a game around. And we needed him tonight and he brought it like I haven’t seen this season yet.”
Turned loose, Pritchard is consistently showing how much he deserves all of the extra freedom. These days, the Celtics trust him as much as he has always trusted himself.
“I think it’s just through the hard work,” Pritchard said. “They see the hours I put in and that builds respect throughout my teammates. That’s how I get respect from other people but also how other people earn my respect is just through the work. That’s what I lean on. Every day I’m just trying to get better and better and better.”
Payton Pritchard and Steph Curry are the only players in the NBA who are shooting at least 44% from distance on at least 8.0 3PA per game. pic.twitter.com/TubUkIiObQ
— Marc D’Amico (@Marc_DAmico) November 30, 2024
NBA Cup drama not the same, but it’s still there
Following the Celtics win, Sam Hauser shook his head while walking off the court partly because of the strange shot he had just made to end the game.
With Boston’s NBA Cup hopes still alive, Mazzulla called a timeout with 1.4 seconds left and the Celtics ahead by six points. Under normal circumstances, Boston would have just allowed the clock to run out, but point differential matters in the NBA’s in-season tournament. So Mazzulla drew up a play that produced a corner 3-pointer for Hauser as time expired. He didn’t seem to love the idea of trying to score in a game the Celtics had already wrapped up.
“It was nice to see one go through the hoop,” said Hauser, who had missed all four of his previous 3-point attempts. “Plus, it was just awkward circumstances obviously. So, a little bit of everything.”
Adding to the awkward circumstances, the Celtics had some history with the Bulls in the NBA Cup. With Boston looking to increase its point differential in the final game of the group stage last season, Mazzulla decided on the highly unusual strategy of intentionally fouling Andre Drummond while ahead by 29 points, and again while ahead by 32 points, in the fourth quarter. Because the Celtics were beating Chicago by so much at the time, Billy Donovan took offense to the decision to Hack-a-Drummond.
“I thought Andre was being put into a bad situation,” Donovan remembered. “That’s all.”
Even some of the Celtics players didn’t feel comfortable with their methods that night, but they were only trying to play by the rules set out for them. To advance, they needed to win by a wide margin. They just didn’t know exactly what that number would be.
“It was weird,” Hauser recalled before Friday night’s game.
The end of the Celtics’ win Friday brought back those memories.
“It is weird that it happened to be the Bulls two years in a row and us having to win by a certain amount of points to try to get into this in-season tournament (group stage),” Hauser said. “So it’s nothing against them. They just happen to be the team that we’ve been playing for our last Cup game.”
After failing to win their group, the Celtics will need some help to reach the knockout stage of the tournament this season. They will be scoreboard watching Tuesday night while other teams finish their group stage schedules.
“To be honest, I still don’t know what needs to happen,” Hauser said. “So I’ll have to ask someone and then I’ll be tuned in whenever I hear.”
(Photo of Payton Pritchard battling the Bulls’ Coby White for a loose ball: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
