Payton Pritchard talks trash, helps lead the Celtics to big win over Heat: Takeaways
Pritchard had yet another big night, becoming the first Celtics player since Isaiah Thomas in 2015 to score 20 or more points in four straight games off the bench.
Payton Pritchard talked some trash and backed it up with another big night off the bench, helping boost the shorthanded Celtics to a 108-89 bounce-back victory over the Heat on Monday.
Here are the takeaways.
Payton Pritchard had words for Erik Spoelstra (and another big night).
Pritchard had yet another big game, becoming – as noted by the NBC Sports Boston broadcast – the first Celtics player since Isaiah Thomas in 2015 to score 20 or more points in four straight games off the bench. The Heat didn’t have many answers for Pritchard, who buried five 3-pointers in 12 attempts, scooted to the rim repeatedly and knocked down a couple of mid-range jumpers, confirming Joe Mazzulla’s claims that his spark-plug guard can score at all three levels.
Pritchard even talked a little trash to legendary Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, letting Spoelstra know on multiple occasions that whichever of the Heat guards were assigned to try to limit him were far from adequate by his standards. His worst victim may have been Tyler Herro, who got cooked twice in a two-minute span late in the fourth quarter before Pritchard was subbed out (and left Pritchard shaking his head as if to say, “this guy really has nothing for me”).
“I’m sure I said something,” Pritchard said afterward. “But […] I kind of blackout in those moments sometimes. But obviously I have respect for them. They’re a good organization, they play hard as a team, so it’s nothing personal. It’s just competitiveness at the end of the day.”
Also, it should come as little surprise but probably warrants mentioning that Pritchard is no longer a player who takes part in garbage-time minutes – he sat down with the rest of the rotation players late in the fourth with the Celtics up 20.
“You look at his first year, he played a lot, then Kemba [Walker] came back and he didn’t play and it seemed like his first couple years, every year, there were just wings ahead of him,” Joe Mazzulla said. “He just continued to work. That’s hard to do for a young guy.”
Pritchard finished with 25 points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals, a block and yet another buzzer-beater, albeit a slightly different one this time.
At this point, his teammates know that sometimes it’s best to just get out of his way.
“On the court, when he’s got it going, I take my butt to the corner and Payton’s running the show,” Jaylen Brown said. “You’ve got to have that ability throughout the year to have a group like that and know on any given night, you can be the first option and on any given night, you can be the fifth option, depending on who’s doing well on our team.”
Jaylen Brown had a stomach issue but played through it.
Brown led the team in scoring with 29 points and joined Pritchard repeatedly in beating up Herro’s mediocre defense, but getting on the court wasn’t easy for the Celtics’ star, according to Mazzulla.
“What Jaylen did to try to prepare to play tonight’s game I thought is important,” Mazzulla said. “It sets a tone for the guys. That sets a tone for the locker room. It sets a tone that you’re willing to work through stuff to play. So I’d rather them be out there and it not look crisp than not be out there, but there’s also times to rest. And I trust them.”
Brown noted that the season is long, and you can’t always be comfortable as a player.
“Guys get sick, don’t feel well. Stuff can be going on. Whatever the case is, I’m trying to always be there as a leader for our group and to make myself available,” Brown said. “And tonight, trying to miss as (few) games as possible is important for just our group and general health.
“So I think even when you’re not feeling well, to show that you’re still available I think kind of just sets a tone for your team to have the same type of mindset. These games matter. Even though we’re in December and we want to play into late June, these games matter. So I just had to push through it.”
Derrick White has the coolest 3-point celebration on the team.
Here’s how you can tell: You might see the occasional teammate blow Tatum’s kiss of death after making a 3-pointer of their own. But with two minutes into the fourth quarter, White drilled a triple – his fifth of the game and his second on consecutive possessions – and the entire bench exploded out of their seats, examining pretend pockets for 3-pointers. Even Tatum, who set the screen that freed White for his triple, stood in place with three fingers on his waist.
The celebration is a perfect mix of engaging, silly and original with just a tinge of swagger, which actually also seems to double as a solid description of White.
White finished with 19 points on 7-for-14 shooting to go with six rebounds and eight assists.
Luke “Dikembe Mutombo” Kornet Part II?
On Sunday, we joked that Luke Kornet might actually be Dikembe Mutombo after he met Donovan Mitchell at the rim and rejected Mitchell’s attempt to put him on a poster.
Tonight we’re still joking, but a little less. The Celtics were without both Al Horford (toe sprain) and Kristaps Porzingis (rest and recovery), but Kornet demolished the Heat around the rim. He finished with six blocks, becoming the seventh player to swat away six or more shots in a game so far this year (perhaps predictably, Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama had the highest total at nine last month against the Clippers).
Kornet finished with six points and four rebounds in 27 minutes.
“I just want to do a job of protecting the rim,” Kornet said. “I just feel like with their movement and positions and stuff by just being in the right place and being able to be aggressive and make plays and I think it helps, I haven’t been able to play them a lot.
“I have a little bit of feel for people’s tendencies and stuff like that. Just got to be in the right spot and be able to make plays. Some nights it goes well in that respect and there’s honestly not a whole lot more to say than that.”
Neemias Queta pitched in as well off the bench, playing 12 minutes to fill in behind Kornet. Having two solid bench options defensively for evenings when Porzingis and Horford both need a night off is a massive boost.
The Celtics put together some odd lineups.
Missing Porzingis and Horford forced Mazzulla to be creative, but he was also without Jrue Holiday (knee soreness) and Sam Hauser (personal reasons), which made for some odd looks.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening from a lineup perspective were the starters, which included Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Luke Kornet, Derrick White and … Jordan Walsh?
The second-year wing only played 13 minutes, but the Celtics called on him to see what he could give with hustle and defense.
The answer? Not a ton. Walsh grabbed three rebounds, but he missed his only field-goal attempt – a 3-pointer – and he did little to demand extra minutes going forward despite the opportunity.
Instead, Drew Peterson – who played 25 minutes against the Cavaliers – got another chance to play in the 20s, and he made the most of it again. Peterson scored seven points and knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, finishing 2-for-5 from behind the arc. He also grabbed seven rebounds, including a pair of offensive boards to keep possessions alive.
Again, Peterson’s role won’t extend to a healthy roster, but he’s doing himself some real favors by being a helpful player on nights when the Celtics need him, and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see him continue to get minutes over the next few busy days.
A reporter asked Kornet about the Stay Ready group that occasionally comes off the bench.
“You know, I like to think that staying ready is a lifestyle,” Kornet mused. “You know, you just live ready.
“I don’t think that makes sense. Drew is great.”
Jayson Tatum was way off from the field.
On a night when the Celtics beat an overmatched Heat team by 19, Tatum’s 7-for-21 performance becomes a funny side note. He finished with 18 points, six turnovers and – maybe most uncharacteristically – with just one free-throw attempt.
Getting a big win on a night when Tatum couldn’t buy a bucket is a very nice result for the Celtics.
The Heat were also way off from the field.
The Celtics held Miami to an icy 35.6 percent from the field (31-for-87) and 8-for-35 from 3-point range (22.9 percent). The Celtics only shot 34.5 percent from three themselves, but they made 11 more triples than the Heat which – as is so frequently the case with this team – made an unsolvable math problem for Spoelstra.
But even setting the 3-pointers aside, the Heat were a disaster. Jaime Jaquez and Tyler Herro led them in scoring with 19 points apiece, but shot 5-for-14 and 6-for-19 respectively (Jaquez went 9-for-12 from the free-throw line). Bam Adebayo shot a dismal 6-for-18, while Duncan Robinson went 2-for-9 (and missed all six of his triples).
If you were curious, the Heat bricked their way to the 11th-worst shooting percentage for a game this season. The Suns have the dubious honor of the worst, shooting 29.3 percent in a loss last month.
A new Joe Mazzulla-ism?
According to Peterson, he was as surprised as anyone else when Mazzulla called his name.
“Usually, when I hear ‘Drew,’ it’s referencing Holiday,” Peterson told CLNS’s Bobby Manning on Sunday.
So why didn’t Mazzulla give Peterson a heads up? He explained his thought process on Monday.
“I just feel like if you give a guy an idea if he’s going to or not going to, it changes his preparation on a daily basis,” Mazzulla said. “So I want our guys to come into the arena every day thinking that their process is important towards winning, and they have to be ready to go, and they’ve got to treat every single day, every single game, as if they’re going to impact winning.
“By not telling them, it allows them to just treat every single day as if it’s the most important day, and they do a great job of embracing that, but it’s important because there’s just a lot of unpredictability over the course of the season. You’ve got to be ready to go at any time. And if you’re only ready to go because you know you’re going to play, then that doesn’t really help your process.”
As is so often the case with Mazzulla, the method behind the madness makes a pretty fair amount of sense.
Three more games before a break.
The Celtics get a night off on Tuesday before they take on the Pistons in Boston on Wednesday. They close their week with contests against the Bucks and Grizzlies on Friday and Saturday respectively.
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