Saturday’s Game 3 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers was a prime example of the Boston Celtics taking care of business. After dropping a gross Game 2, they regained focus and did a fantastic job of controlling things in a hostile environment.
The Celtics did so by winning the “clutch moments” even when the game wasn’t close. In perhaps the most clutch moment in the entire game, Payton Pritchard, who was just 1-for-3 at the time, drilled a 33-foot bomb to stabilize things for Boston.
Is Pritchard the most confident man on the planet? Maybe, he’s got to be top-10, right?
At this point, Cleveland had been chipping away at the once 23-point Celtics lead for the last 10 minutes or so and had outscored Boston 10-to-4 in the opening stretch of the fourth quarter.
I’m not sure I’d say Boston was in full collapse mode, but things were beginning to slip a bit.
Anyway, once Pritchard’s attempt found the bottom of the net, the Cavs were put into a double-digit hole that they’d never climb out of. Boston’s seventh, maybe eighth man was trusted to take on an offensive initiator role at a crucial point of an important playoff game and showed everyone why.
He read the screen defense and punished the Cavs for not getting up on him.
How many other guys in his role around the league would be trusted in a spot like this?
“Payton is one of the most confident guys I’ve ever been around,” Jayson Tatum said after the Celtics beat the Heat in Game 3. “He walks out there like he’s the best player. To have that confidence is special and we need him to be like that.”
I’m also not sure if there were any Cs fans watching this live going, “no no no, yes!” Pritchard is a bonafide “green light guy” if you ask me.
This moment says a lot about how much the Celtics trust each other. Again, the shot didn’t feel out of place, it didn’t feel rushed, and I doubt anyone had much of a problem with it.
Pritchard has been known to drop a “that’s what I do” every once in a while. Well, this is what he does. He’s a brass balls guy who doesn’t play recklessly. In fact, he may be the least reckless “scoring punch off the bench guy” in the entire league. He was wildly efficient throughout the regular season, both in terms of shooting and assist-to-turnover ratio.
Fast PP certainly stands out from his sparkplug NBA peers in that sense. Players in his role usually are there because there’s a glaring hole in their game, whether it’s defense, efficiency, or something else.
In his case, he’s just surrounded by tons of talent and it doesn’t affect him at all. Pritchard has a psycho-confidence about him where he believes he’s just as good as anyone on the floor.
Jayson Tatum with high praise for Payton Pritchard:
“Payton is one of the most confident guys I’ve ever been around … He walks out there like he’s the best player, and to have that confidence is special. And we need him to be like that.” pic.twitter.com/LRlOy06unM
— Taylor Snow (@taylorcsnow) April 28, 2024
It goes without saying, but players like Payton Pritchard are unbelievably important if you want to win in the NBA. Sure, the guys at the top are the ones who have the most responsibility. The value in someone like Pritchard is the way that he’s able to take on some of that responsibility without being “the guy.”
Basketball is a team game, after all.
