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Tim BontempsESPN
Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and after a stellar four-year career at BYU, he made a living during his 14-year career in the NBA as a tough and uncompromising guard who knew shoot.
Decades later, Ainge fell in love during the recruitment process for another boy from Oregon. And while newcomer Payton Pritchard didn’t go to Ainge’s alma mater, he had a four-year honored career at the University of Oregon and had an NBA quality pitch like Ainge’s.
This led Ainge to call Pritchard 26th in the NBA draft last November, a selection he and the Celtics probably hoped could become a small part of coach Brad Stevens’ rotation this season. Instead, Pritchard became a vital part of Boston’s hopes of making another tiebreaker.
On Thursday night against the Raptors, Pritchard showed why, scoring 20 points while scoring 6 out of 8 in the 3 point range to help the Celtics beat the Toronto Raptors 120 to 106 on a night when the two stars of the team this season, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, combined to shoot 8 out of 27.
“They attract a crowd, so they’re going to have to draw a duo or something,” said Pritchard later. “So it’s our job to space the floor and find openings for them.”
As a four-year old college player with a skillful kick touch, Pritchard certainly fit the mold of the type of player capable of making an initial impact on the league. Still, it is a high barrier for a newcomer to join a team with championship aspirations, like Boston, and become an essential part of the team’s rotation. Newcomer Aaron Nesmith, for example – the 14th choice in the 2020 draft – barely played.
Pritchard, on the other hand, is now clearly the sixth player on the team. He played every game when he was healthy this season – and for more than 10 minutes in every game except the one where he suffered an MCL twist against the Philadelphia 76ers on January 22. Even with those games lost, he scored 3 points more than everyone except Tatum and Brown at the Celtics this season, while his 46.9% clip behind the arc leaves him behind only Desmond Bane of Memphis (48.2%) among newcomers with at least three triples per game, and 10th among all players who did this per game this season.
And while recognizing that Pritchard shouldn’t be making six 3s per game, Stevens said he immediately realized that the newcomer had a chance to make an impact this season.
“Before the training camp started,” said Stevens, “[the draftees] it came a few days after the draft and, after some tests, I managed to do the work in small groups and I could see that it was well advanced. “
Part of what made Pritchard so important is the lack of options around him at Boston Bank. No one questions the Celtics’ top talent on the perimeter, between Tatum, Brown, Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart (who is currently out with a calf strain).
Behind them, however, the options are limited. Jeff Teague was hired to be the team’s main reserve guard, but after scoring 19 points in the opening game of the Celtics this season, he hit 30% of the field (including a hideous 28% on 2-point shots) and was dropped from rotation Stevens, with Pritchard taking his place as the first guard off the bench.
While Semi Ojeleye had a career record of 24 points on Thursday, including his own 6-to-8 performance in the 3-point range, this is far from a common occurrence, as he entered Thursday with an average of less than a 3 per game. The other rotating Boston players off the bench – Tristan Thompson, Grant Williams and Robert Williams – all have varying skill sets, but none can be counted for the instant attack.
Arguably, no one else on the team can come in and offer that instant attack like Pritchard did on Thursday – and has been doing throughout the season. And while he was a playmaker in Oregon, playing on a Boston team with Walker, Tatum and Brown allowed Pritchard to slide perfectly as an off-ball player whose opponent’s kick must respect. It gives the Celtics’ primary scoring options vital space to operate and has been good enough to defend itself.
And, in a game in which Tatum and Brown missed 19 shots, that spacing – and Pritchard, Ojeyele and Walker’s hot kick – which hit 5 out of 8 in the 3-point range – allowed them to accumulate 19 assists.
The questions will continue to hover over the depth of Boston. Although Pritchard has clearly established itself as the team’s main guard off the bench, and Boston’s great men’s quartet – Daniel Theis, Thompson and both Williamses – will play a role, the team still lacks depth behind its trio of wings. in Tatum, Brown and smart.
Courtesy of the $ 28 million trade exception created by the departure of Gordon Hayward in this off-season and his status as one of the few competitors who has control of his choices in the first round in the future, Boston has the ability to add a share between now and next month’s deadline negotiations. And, with the East looking open at the moment, such a move could give the Celtics a chance to finally stand out and return to the NBA finals after reaching the Eastern Conference finals in three of the past four seasons.
Pritchard’s move, however, helped to ease some of the concerns about the goal coming from outside Boston’s top options. As a result, in less than two months of his debut season, Pritchard made Ainge look prescient by betting on another four-year-old college student from Oregon.