Boston Celtics’ Payton Pritchard offers big offensive boost

Payton Pritchard’s first seven games were a historic one for the Boston Celtics franchise, and his teammates enjoyed his lightning start.

Specifically, however, the Celtics got a needed boost from Pritchard on the bench with Kemba Walker sidelined.

“He’s had more good nights, for sure not,” said Brad Stevens after Pritchard’s 23-point explosion against the Toronto Raptors. “And we’re going to ask him to do a lot for now. Fair or unfair to him, he’s going to have to be consistent for us, so that we have a chance to be a good team.

That responsibility might be fairer to Pritchard than to other rookies – the Celtics drafted the 22-year-old in part because of the immediate impact they believed he could bring.

But that hardly minimizes how impressive Pritchard’s start was. In a season with only weeks between draft and season, no Summer League and a truncated training camp, Pritchard has managed to look like an NBA contributor in his first seven games.

Specifically, Pritchard followed Stevens’ preaching: Rookies enter his rotation by improving the top players on the team. In recent years, Stevens has adapted his rotations to maximize Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and Pritchard passes this test with flying colors.

According to Cleaning the Glass, the rosters with Tatum and Pritchard beat their opponents by 21.6 points per 100 possessions. The sample size is generally small (231 possessions) but large enough to be interesting in just seven parts. The lineups with Pritchard and Brown, meanwhile, beat their opponents by 14.7 points per 100 possessions. These numbers are supported a bit by the presence of Tatum (exclude Tatum from these rosters and the Pritchard / Brown rosters have been slightly outclassed), but that’s the point Stevens tried to make on several occasions – Pritchard’s job is not to be an offense in itself.

Basically, Pritchard was a perfect fit. In his first few games, the Celtics used him primarily as a spot-up threat – drilling 3-point pointers, some well behind the line, and attacking fences for mid-range floats and pull-ups. It’s valuable next to Tatum and Brown, but what he did against Toronto was much more impressive – he created his own offense.

At one point in the second quarter, Pritchard attacked Pascal Siakam out of the dribble, slowed his pace to the rim, and leaned just enough to drop a float over Siakam. On the next possession, Pritchard dislodged Fred VanVleet with a screen from Tatum, then shot in an odd hook shot from 12 feet when he stopped his dribble. His first basket of the second half was a 3-point step back that rocked VanVleet and made the Celtics bench leap and rejoice.

On a night when the Celtics were missing both Marcus Smart and Jeff Teague, they needed Pritchard to be more than just a one-off threat, and he delivered.

“I stay prepared for any opportunity that comes my way,” said Pritchard. “This is where I try to help my team win like we did tonight. And honestly every night is going to be a different night, but I’m going to find little ways that can be different offensively, anything to help my team that night.

His teammates appreciate the help.

“Dude, Payton don’t need a thing,” Grant Williams said. “He’s a vet. I feel like he’s pretty old, he’s a guy who plays college at a high level. And then he also sees the game very well. He plays with an intensity and a certain competitiveness that inspires others, and a great credit to him because any recruit who arrives can be shaken at any time, but for him to come and lead this team not only in the second unit but also sometimes the first unit, it shows how much he has real control and how special he is for a player.