Earlier than the fourth quarter of the Pistons recreation, it appeared like Payton Pritchard is likely to be coming again to earth. Then Pritchard poured in 12 factors and three rebounds within the last body. And Joe Mazzulla appreciated each minute of it.
“I assumed he made big-time performs whether or not it was the offensive rebound, whether or not it was the play on the finish of the sport, or simply pushing the place. You recognize, he kinda simply has the power to influence the sport in several methods.”
A traditional misnomer is that Mazzulla Ball is just making an attempt to shoot as many three-point photographs as attainable. Offensively, Mazzulla Ball is about creating the absolute best shot. It simply so occurs the Celtics have possibly probably the most capturing expertise ever assembled on an NBA roster. You combine the capturing expertise with a bunch of nice shot-creators, and you find yourself with the best three-point charge in NBA historical past.
The piece of Mazzulla Ball that generally will get missed is about dominating on the margins. Mazzulla’s Celtics are going to kill you from the three-point. There’s nothing that may be achieved about that. However they’re additionally not going to show it over, rebound the ball, and this 12 months, get to the free-throw line. So even when the three-point photographs don’t fall, the Celtics have seemingly crushed you in sufficient of the margins to win anyway, as evidenced by their 5-0 file in video games the place they shoot beneath 34% from three. Good luck beating that crew 4 out of seven instances within the playoffs.
Because of this it is smart for Mazzulla to gush about Pritchard’s capability to influence the sport outdoors his capturing. Particularly his offensive rebounding.
“You noticed it offensive rebounding. You noticed it shot-making. He can simply influence the sport in so some ways.”
Three-point capturing can come and go; even Steph Curry can have a chilly evening or week or month from three-point vary. Nice gamers nonetheless influence the sport on these nights. Pritchard, regardless of being 6”1, in what I’m guessing are very tall sneakers, rebounds the heck out of the ball whereas sustaining an elite assist-turnover ratio. Pritchard is an elite offensive rebounder for his measurement and place. Over the previous 25 years, out of all gamers six-foot-two and below, Pritchard is sixth in offensive rebounding share behind solely Rajon Rondo, Sundiata Gaines, Bobby Jackson, Patrick Beverly, and Gary Payton II.
Accumulating clutch offensive rebounds is just not a brand new phenomenon for Payton Pritchard. Pritchard has been doing this since he joined the Boston Celtics in 2020.
That is what he does.
If you mix Pritchard’s influence on the margins together with his explosive scoring capability, the Celtics are left with one of the impactful bench gamers within the NBA.
