Pritchard scores 42 as Celtics beat Cavaliers: Takeaways

Boston Celtics

The only thing that was able to limit Pritchard in the first quarter was foul trouble.

Payton Pritchard had a huge night and Jaylen Brown recorded a triple-double as the Celtics held on for a thrilling win over the Cavaliers on Sunday. 

Here are the takeaways.

Payton Pritchard was fully engulfed in flames

Pritchard struggled against the Timberwolves on Saturday, and the Cavaliers suffered the wrath of his mean regression immediately — he buried a 3-pointer on the first possession of the game, then needed just one minute before he made his next one. On the Celtics’ next possession, he buried his third. 

The only thing that was able to limit Pritchard in the first quarter was foul trouble — he picked up his second at the 5:52 mark, just eight seconds after scoring his 10th point with a mid-range jumper.

But when Pritchard returned to the game, he remained hot, and he was an important part of a massive third-quarter flurry that stretched the lead as high as 18 before the Cavaliers trimmed the deficit back down to 11 before the end of the quarter. Pritchard then hit a monstrous 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter, three huge 2-pointers, and four enormous free throws that helped the Celtics hold the Cavaliers at arm’s length. He finished with 42 points on 15-for-22 shooting and 6-for-11 from behind the 3-point line.

Maybe Pritchard’s biggest play in a 42-point game, however, came with 15 seconds remaining. The Celtics needed to get the ball over the half-court line against a hyper-aggressive Cavaliers defense, and they only had three seconds to do so. Pritchard calmly caught the inbounds pass in the back court (where Cleveland wanted him to catch it), and he nimbly maneuvered his way through Cleveland’s defenders to find Sam Hauser across the line in the nick of time. Hauser passed back to Pritchard, and he dribbled several seconds off the clock before the Cavaliers were able to foul him.

At their best, the Celtics are quick and aggressive, driven by bucket-getters and 3-point shooting. Pritchard embodies all of that, and on nights like Sunday when he starts making shots early, he becomes very difficult to stop. 

Jaylen Brown got a triple-double hitting cutters

Brown didn’t have his best game as a scorer (3-for-13 from the floor, 1-for-4 from deep), but against a Cavaliers team that was laser-focused on stopping him, he helped his teammates take advantage—he added 12 rebounds and 11 assists, tallying the fourth triple-double of his career. 

Last year’s Celtics team was defined by 3-point shooting, but this year’s squad—led by Brown—has been far more dangerous from the mid-range, and Brown has led the charge. According to Synergy Sports, he is in the 89th percentile league-wide from mid-range, shooting 52.5 percent from 17 feet to the 3-point line, and teams have caught on to the fact that Brown shooting mid-range jumpers is nearly as efficient as a decent 3-point shooter firing from behind the arc. 

So when the Cavaliers tried to take away Brown’s mid-range shooting, the Celtics’ role players made the smart adjustment to simply cut backdoor, and Brown was content to pile up assists dishing to his teammates under the rim. 

“To me, having a great balance of knowing when it’s his time versus when it’s time to make a play, and that’s been a huge growth of his—not just this year, but in the past as well,” Joe Mazzulla told reporters afterward. “That’s what you want out of your best players.”

Brown piled up 19 points thanks to a big night at the free-throw line (12-for-16), although he missed two in a row at one point as well as one with under a second remaining that made the final possession a little dicey. 

Still, like a true superstar, Brown found ways to affect the game even when he wasn’t scoring like he did against the Timberwolves. 

Xavier Tillman had his best game of the season

Slotted into a starting role with Neemias Queta sidelined, Xavier Tillman looked very comfortable despite his status as a little-used depth big man. Defensively, Tillman is mobile enough to move his feet respectably within the Celtics’ system, and he was solid around the basket — racking up nine points on 4-for-9 shooting. Four of his misses came behind the 3-point line (although, for whatever it’s worth, his lone make looked spectacular coming out of his hands). 

Mazzulla lauded Tillman after the game for his ability to play without a rhythm.

“X is the ultimate professional,” Mazzulla said.”Whether he plays every game or he misses 10 games, I have a level of trust that he’s going to go out there, and he’s going to execute, and he’s going to do exactly what we want, and that’s really hard to do in this league, so you can’t take a guy like that for granted. 

Jordan Walsh ripped a guy

Walsh has earned a recurring spot in the Celtics’ starting lineup with hyper-aggressive defense, making plays that you simply don’t see very often, even at the NBA level. 

On Sunday, his best one came early in the fourth quarter. With 9:15 remaining, Cavaliers forward De’Andre Hunter grabbed a rebound with the Celtics nursing a four-point lead after Anfernee Simons missed a triple. Hunter, however, didn’t have full control of the ball, and Walsh got his hands in and ripped it away — bypassing a jump ball entirely and instead forcing a turnover. Hunter fouled Walsh, and he got a pair of free throws, which he knocked down. 

Walsh finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds to go with a pair of steals.

“To me, [Walsh’s best play] was taking the ball and getting the foul,” Mazzulla said. “He’s slowly understanding what the role has to be every single night, and it’s a difficult task. Tonight, I thought you saw what the best version of him is on both ends of the floor, and he can be that every night, and he’s learning that, but that’s the Jordan that we need. 

“If we want to get to a different level this year, he’s got to keep working at it, but tonight was a perfect example of him at his best.”

Your lead is never safe with Donovan Mitchell

Presumably by now, the Celtics have obtained a healthy level of fear of late-game Donovan Mitchell, against whom no lead ever seems to be entirely safe. 

That was the case once again on Sunday. The Celtics let their lead dip, but they built it back to a healthy eight-point advantage with 1:24 left after a pair of free throws by Pritchard. 

The Cavaliers, however, got five straight on a dunk by Evan Mobley and a deep, sky-scraping 3-pointer by Mitchell. The Celtics got another jumper by Pritchard, which Mitchell answered with another even more difficult 3-pointer that trimmed the advantage to two. 

Pritchard tried again to put the game away with the aforementioned dribble over half court, but Darius Garland then responded with a 3-pointer of his own, and after Brown split a pair of free throws, the Celtics were in real danger of losing a game that they probably felt like they sewed up on multiple occasions. 

Garland (21 points) actually outscored Mitchell (18), but no one who watches the Celtics consistently would mistake Garland’s impact for anything close to Mitchell’s — the Celtics love when Garland is on the floor because they target him mercilessly, and his brutal -27 in the box score spoke to the enthusiasm with which the Celtics went at him.

Mitchell, however, is explosive enough that the Celtics can never feel truly relaxed, no matter the lead.

The Celtics are performing admirably during a tough stretch

A week ago, the Celtics beat the Magic 138-129 in their first of a 10-game stretch during which they would face nine times who were above them in the standings. 

After the first four games of that stretch, the Celtics are now 3-1. 

The Magic game was a bit of a freebie—Orlando was very short-handed—but the wins now include victories over the East-leading Pistons, and a Cavaliers team that was projected to finish far ahead of the Celtics but now only leads them in the standings by half a game. 

The Celtics have now won seven of their last 10, and while they are ninth in the standings, they trail the fourth-place Heat (who they play head-to-head near the end of this brutal stretch) by just two games. 

The Celtics, however improbably, are hanging in there. 

What’s next

The Celtics’ grip, however, will continue to be tested. They now return home to face the Knicks—the first in a three-games-in-four-nights stretch that includes a contest Thursday against the Wizards in Washington before they take on the Lakers at TD Garden on Friday.

The Celtics travel to Toronto to take on the third-place (we swear we are not making that up) Raptors next Sunday.