Earlier than the fourth quarter of the Pistons recreation, it appeared like Payton Pritchard is perhaps 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 believed 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 realize, he kinda simply has the flexibility to influence the sport in several methods.”
A traditional misnomer is that Mazzulla Ball is solely making an attempt to shoot as many three-point photographs as doable. 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 typically 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 accomplished 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 probably overwhelmed you in sufficient of the margins to win anyway, as evidenced by their 5-0 document in video games the place they shoot beneath 34% from three. Good luck beating that group 4 out of seven occasions within the playoffs.
This is the reason it is sensible for Mazzulla to gush about Pritchard’s capacity 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 night time 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 footwear, 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 underneath, Pritchard is sixth in offensive rebounding proportion behind solely Rajon Rondo, Sundiata Gaines, Bobby Jackson, Patrick Beverly, and Gary Payton II.
Gathering clutch offensive rebounds shouldn’t be 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.
Whenever you mix Pritchard’s influence on the margins along with his explosive scoring capacity, the Celtics are left with some of the impactful bench gamers within the NBA.
