Boston Celtics
Pritchard scored 33 points on Saturday night.
Payton Pritchard had a huge third quarter that propelled the Celtics sans Jaylen Brown to a gutsy 112-96 win over the Raptors on Saturday.
Here are the takeaways.
Payton Pritchard went off (and kept the Celtics alive).
The Celtics were on the verge of letting Saturday’s game slip away in the third quarter, but Pritchard had no intention of letting that happen.
With Jaylen Brown sidelined on the second night of a back-to-back on the road, the Celtics trailed by seven with five minutes left in the third. They had already thrown a first-half punch with a 16-0 run in the first quarter, which the Raptors absorbed and countered, and the Celtics’ offense sputtered at times in the second and third quarters.
But Pritchard — who was already in a bit of a rhythm — hit a tough stepback two that trimmed the lead to five. On the next possession, he zigged and zagged through the paint before dishing to Sam Hauser for a triple. On the next possession, he drilled a 3-pointer of his own. Suddenly, the Celtics had flipped the deficit into a lead.
The Celtics and Raptors exchanged blows, but Pritchard took control for the rest of the period — he scored or assisted on every Celtics basket as they built a three-point lead entering the fourth.
Pritchard flirted with a triple-double (and even stole a rebound from Derrick White in the closing seconds, long after his near-triple-double was a lost cause), posting 33 points on 13-for-24 shooting to go with eight rebounds and 10 assists. He was 4-for-9 from deep, but the bulk of his scoring came from his forays into the paint — vanishingly few players of Pritchard’s stature can get to their spots as easily as he can, and he makes short jumpers over bigger players look far easier than they have any right to look.
On a night when the Celtics were without Brown and when Derrick White shot 5-for-20 from the field (more on this in a minute), they managed to win for a few different reasons, but the biggest one was that Pritchard can now be the driving engine for a team in a win over a good opponent.
It’s going to be difficult for Celtics fans to remain calm about Hugo González.
González played a career-high in minutes against the Heat on Friday, and with Jordan Walsh barely healthy enough to play on Saturday with an illness, González had another big opportunity that he seized tight enough to throttle it.
For the second straight evening, González recorded 10 points, two steals and a block, but on Saturday, he added 10 rebounds to his total — his first career double-double.
After the Celtics’ win over the Heat, Joe Mazzulla praised González’s ability to play hard, but he’s also a very intelligent player, without any “for a rookie” caveat necessary. That’s not to say González is always polished, but he reads passing lanes at a very advanced level, and he’s hyper-aggressive in attacking them to try to create turnovers. His late steal and ensuing two-handed slam left Brian Scalabrine chortling at the audacious 19-year-old on the NBC Sports Boston broadcast.
González is often remarked upon when the Celtics play on national TV (Stan Van Gundy in particular seems to love him), even though he is yet to meaningfully break through into the national media consciousness.
That’s fine and completely excusable on all sides — this rookie class is absurdly loaded, and González was averaging 12 minutes and four points per game entering Saturday’s game.
But Celtics fans are also well within their rights to be excited. Rookies aren’t supposed to be as NBA-ready as González is quickly proving himself.
Derrick White is heating up.
At a glance, White’s game looked like a tough evening following his big outing leading the Celtics to a win over the Heat — he was 5-for-20 and 4-for-12 from three.
However, upon closer inspection, White pitched in some crucial contributions. He pulled up out of the pick-and-roll for a 3-pointer from far behind the line at the 9:12 mark in the fourth quarter that pushed a seven-point advantage to double digits, and a minute later, he curled around a screen twice as the ball-handler and drilled another that made the lead 13.
Another minute later, White navigated a screen, felt some contact, and elevated to bank in an and-one floater.
Much has been made of White’s struggles to handle increased responsibilities this season, but he’s starting to get the hang of this. He looks more comfortable pulling the trigger on the types of shots that a high-volume pick-and-roll ball-handler needs to be willing to take, and he’s always been a solid passer out of the pick-and-roll — he dished out seven assists Saturday.
Luka Garza got minutes and played well.
Garza had received DNP-CDs in six of the Celtics’ last eight games, and just two minutes in one of the games in which he did appear. He seems to have fallen out of the Celtics’ rotation as Mazzulla favors a small-ball lineup that offers more defensive versatility and the opportunity to flow quicker up and down the floor.
What that lineup can’t do, however, is hammer the offensive glass as hard as Garza, who made a triumphant return to the rotation with a bizarre statline: 12 points and 10 rebounds … nine (nine!) of which were offensive.
Garza’s nose for the ball was on full display — he took advantage of the way the Raptors were defending the pick-and-roll to sneak in behind the defense and find his way to numerous offensive boards, rescuing a number of possessions for others even when he didn’t directly score the put-back. The Celtics even briefly tried a double-big lineup, although Mazzulla ducked away from it after a couple of brief minutes.
The Celtics probably aren’t going to reintroduce Garza to the rotation, but on a team that often needs contributions from odd sources, Garza reminded fans that he’s capable.
Baylor Scheierman quickly redeemed himself.
In his first few possessions off the bench in the third and fourth quarters, Scheierman looked hesitant and off-kilter. He committed two quick fouls, racked up a third and a turnover in short order with a moving screen, missed a 3-pointer badly, and gave up a corner 3-pointer before he appeared to find his footing.
But to his enormous credit, Scheierman found it. He scored a tough driving layup, then turned defense into offense with perhaps the play of the game: This steal and behind-the-head dish to a flying González in transition.
Scheierman disrupted and created another steal for good measure before he was removed from the game in the fourth. His evening quickly shifted from “why is he out there?” to “he helped the Celtics win,” which isn’t an easy shift to make.
Anfernee Simons is a tough shot maker.
If there’s one thing Anfernee Simons can do, it’s make tough shots, and he does so with an artistic flair.
None of Simons’ 15 points on Friday were easy — all were heavily contested, and all came off the dribble out of the pick-and-roll. He isn’t the most impactful player on a team as laser-focused on winning as the Celtics (there’s a reason Payton Pritchard has maintained a stranglehold on his spot in the starting lineup), but Simons is supremely talented and has the rare ability to score incredibly difficult shots and make them look smooth and fluid.
Simons finished with 15 points on 6-for-9 shooting to go with an assist and two steals.
What’s next
The Celtics will close out their three-games-in-four-nights stretch at TD Garden when they take on the Pacers on Monday. They are then off until after Christmas when they face the Pacers again, this time in Indiana as they start a five-game road trip that extends to the west coast in the new year.
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