Payton Pritchard’s latest milestone puts him on list with John Havlicek, Larry Bird, and Bob Cousy
"I'm here to win a championship. And whatever's asked of me, I'll do that."
Payton Pritchard fell just short of a triple-double Sunday, but that didn’t diminish what was yet another masterful performance from the dynamic Celtics guard.
“If it came, I’d take it, but I got one last year, so it wasn’t like I had pressure to get my first triple-double,” Pritchard told reporters.
After contributing 31 points and 11 assists against the Hornets on Friday, Pritchard kept it rolling with 38 points (15-of-21 shooting), 12 assists, and 9 rebounds in Boston’s 132-122 win over the Wizards.
He said after Friday’s game that he wasn’t into stat-chasing and would get another opportunity to organically surpass 31. As it turned out, he did so with relative ease just two days later.
According to NBC Sports Boston Celtics statistician Dick Lipe, Pritchard became the fourth Celtics player ever to record back-to-back 30-point, 10-assist double-doubles. He joins John Havlicek (three games in 1970), Larry Bird (two games in 1986) and Bob Cousy (two games, three times).
Only seven Celtics in the play-by-play era have had at least 20 points and six assists in the first half, per Lipe. Pritchard is the only one of those seven who has done it twice, and he happened to do so in back-to-back games.
His last two performances are simply the latest examples in a much larger trend. Pritchard averaged 16 points, 6.3 assists, and 2.9 rebounds in eight regular-season games in April and is playing some of the best basketball of his career.
He was the only Celtic to appear in all 82 games this season and provided consistency and energy regardless of the situation.
Time will tell how much run he gets in the playoffs, but he appears to have solidified his role as a spark off the bench.
“I’m here to win a championship,” Pritchard told reporters. “And whatever’s asked of me, I’ll do that.”
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