LOS ANGELES — Jaylen Brown broke right into a toothy grin as he chest-bumped Payton Pritchard on the middle of Crypto.com area, moments after Pritchard crossed up Austin Reaves en path to his sixth three-pointer of the night time.
Brown, Pritchard’s longest-tenured teammate, relished the offensive explosion.
“Payton has been taking part in at an All-Star stage,” Brown mentioned after the Celtics 111-89 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. “And I’m comfortable to see it. No person happier to see it than me.”
Pritchard’s three-pointer prolonged the Celtics’ result in 22 factors, their thirty seventh win of the season all however secured. And, a staff that was as soon as heralded by many as destined for the lottery prolonged their lead for second place within the Japanese Convention.
On the sidelines, Jayson Tatum chuckled, in awe of Pritchard’s masterful offensive show (the Celtics guard completed the afternoon with 30 factors on 10-14 taking pictures).
However afterwards, in quintessential trend, Pritchard mentioned he wasn’t a completed product.
“[There’s] one other step I can get to,” Pritchard mentioned. “So, simply gonna hold working — and I’m gonna get to it.”
In a single sense, Payton Pritchard was the story of the Celtics’ blowout win over the Lakers — the 27-year-old has been on a tear as of late, averaging 23.6 factors and taking pictures 54.4% from the sphere in his final 7 video games (since Anfernee Simons was traded to the Chicago Bulls).
Payton Pritchard, the NBA’s most effective isolation scorer this season, overcame an ice-cold begin to the yr to common 17.6 factors and 5.4 assists per sport, each career-highs.
However, was Pritchard the story of the Celtics’ Sunday afternoon victory? Is he the story of the Celtics’ season?
Jaylen Brown, in fact, deserves loads of the limelight
Within the victory, Brown talled 32 factors, 8 rebounds, and seven assists, placing forth one other all-around efficiency that earned reward from LeBron James himself.
“This complete MVP factor, I don’t perceive why his identify isn’t getting talked about some as nicely,” James mentioned, per CLNS Media. “Like, no person gave them a shot to begin the season. And he’s averaging what, 30 [points]? Slightly below 30? It’s a recognition contest generally, I inform you.”
Brown has acquired his fair proportion of accolades this season; in January, he earned his first-ever Japanese Convention Participant of the Month choice. Final week, he began in an All-Star sport for the primary time in his NBA tenure. And, earlier than the sport, Lakers head coach JJ Redick said merely that there have been no holes in Brown’s sport.
Is Brown’s leap the story of the Celtics’ season?
There’s a powerful case to be made. Jaylen Brown has performed a few of the greatest basketball of his profession, averaging 29.2 factors, 7 rebounds, and 4.9 assists — all career-highs.
It’s uncommon for a participant of their tenth season to make such a considerable lap — Brown is scoring 7 extra factors per sport than he did final yr — and it’s the primary time in his profession he’s been in MVP conversations.
“I really feel like I’m the very best two-way participant on this planet,” Brown mentioned. “I play each ends on the courtroom night-to-night. I’m accessible, which is tough to do. I’m a frontrunner. Assist lead my staff, empower my staff to return out and play confidently, stuff that doesn’t at all times present up on the analytics. And I’m a winner. I come out and attempt to win each single night time.”
In some methods, Celtics-Lakers was all concerning the younger bucks
It’s laborious to boil down the Celtics’ success to the elite play of 1 participant, when all season lengthy has so loudly been concerning the staff. Contributions have come from completely different gamers each night time — for a stretch, it was Josh Minott beginning video games for Boston (Minott is now not on the staff).
For a couple-month interval, Jordan Walsh, who began 20 consecutive video games, was the discuss of the city. For a stretch, it was Hugo Gonzalez, who started to interrupt by way of at simply 19 years previous.
A trademark attribute of this group has been that no matter who is accessible, the identical consideration to element is on full show.
These days, Sam Hauser and Baylor Scheierman usually begin video games for Boston, with Pritchard and Nikola Vucevic coming off the bench.
There have been turning factors in Sunday’s beatdown that felt just like the Celtics’ success might largely be attributed to the staff’s trio of younger defenders: Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez, and Jordan Walsh.
Mazzulla mentioned that Brown pulled all three apart — in addition to Sam Hauser — at Saturday’s observe in Santa Monica in an effort to go over a few of the Lakers’ stars offensive tendencies. That further scout carried over into Sunday’s sport; James, Austin Reaves, and Luka Doncic mixed to shoot simply 22 of 53 (41%) from the sphere.
And, Brown favored what he noticed from that trio in motion on Sunday afternoon.
“Hugo made some massive performs for us,” Brown mentioned. “Baylor was wonderful tonight. Protection is what we’ve acquired to proceed to raise.”
The Celtics, in flip, tallied their third consecutive victor.
They now have the NBA’s fourth-best report (trailing solely the Detroit Pistons, Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder, and San Antonio Spurs) and third-best web score (trailing solely the Pistons and Thunder).
After the win, Mazzulla was requested what he thought was the story of the Celtics’ season.
His reply completely mirrored the Celtics’ mindset: deal with the suitable now, on the controllables. Give attention to the method, not the consequence.
“The story’s not executed,” Mazzulla mentioned. “We’re solely a product of what we do tomorrow, what we do the following day, and that’s simply the story. If we’d have misplaced this sport by 1, tomorrow’s movie session [would have] to be as detailed and as disciplined as it’s going to be with the consequence that we had. And in order that’s the story. It’s not executed but.”
Mazzulla doesn’t anticipate Monday’s Celtics movie session to really feel any completely different on the heels of a victory as it could really feel after a loss. After the 22-point win, he famous the Celtics gave up two back-cuts and an after-timeout lob to LeBron. He additionally famous that the Celtics overhelped on a number of three-point makes an attempt.
All of these performs — win or loss — is what the group will deal with tomorrow.
“We haven’t executed something,” Mazzulla mentioned. “All we’ve executed is persist with the method of successful on each ends of the ground, put our head down. [We] don’t overreact to a superb win or to a foul loss. And, [we] get higher within the subsequent sport.”
