Kristaps Porzingis shined in his triumphant return in a 126-94 blowout of the visiting Clippers, but his wasn’t the only comeback of Monday night.
After a strong November that has vaulted him to the favorite for the Sixth Man of the Year Award, Payton Pritchard had gone just 2-for-8 from behind the arc in his last two games against the Wizards and Timberwolves.
His fellow second unit shooter, Sam Hauser, is going through a season-long slump, making just 32.5% of his threes after hitting ten percentage points higher during the championship run.
But against the backdrop of KP’s first game of the season, Pritchard and Hauser had their own revival of shorts, making a combined 9-of-13 from 3.
Midway through the first quarter, Boston and Los Angeles were tied 10-10 when the two sharpshooters entered the game. When they left in the second, the Celtics were up 16 with the duo combining for 18 first half points.
“The other guys on the court — Jayson, Jaylen, Jrue, Derrick, KP — they understand that those guys take the pressure off them. Those guys are able to give us a different look,” head coach Joe Mazzulla said of his bench stars. “I like the fact that our team has an understanding that everyone’s got a role, everyone’s got a strength. We can go to different frequencies. That second quarter, we went to more off ball stuff. Jayson was a facilitator. Every game, we got to take advantage of the strengths of our team and our guys have an understanding of that.”
It’s not just Pritchard and Hauser’s ability to stretch the floor on the offensive side of the ball. Both have become plus-defenders since being regular staples in the rotation last season. Several times against the Clippers, they got ISO’d against James Harden, one of the league’s greatest scorers/foul merchants, and held their own.
“Just his ball pressure. Again, everyone talks about the shooting, but I think he’s grown as a player over the last few years to where he finds different ways to impact the game,” Mazzulla said of Pritchard. “Shooting is an obvious one, but his ball pressure and his defense has impacted games, this year, last year in particular. He’s just continuing to grow as a player.”
The odds-on favorite for 6MOTY credits the coaching staff for creating drills that accentuate his skills and Hauser’s. And if iron sharpens iron, the two have become one of the best one-two punches off any NBA bench.
“You can’t lose us. I’ve said this before: Sam is the best catch-and-shoot, off-ball shooter in the league. You always got to account for him. You can’t lose him,” Pritchard said of Hauser. “It takes pressure off everybody else and it makes the lanes a lot more open. It just creates havoc.”
On most nights, Pritchard and Hauser won’t grab the headlines when the Celtics win. Pritchard said that even though he’s widely considered the Sixth Man frontrunner, he won’t chase stats to win the award. In the end, he and Hauser are just part of the larger Celtics’ ecosystem.
“We’re just trying to play the right basketball. They know if our guys help and we’re open, they should kick the ball and let him take the open shot instead of forcing something up. I feel like we got great rhythm as a team,” Pritchard said. “We understand that if you attack the paint, two on the ball, kick it. Everyone is capable of knocking down shots and if you’re shooting at the rim, you got to finish. Basketball is really simple when you make it like that.”
