BOSTON — Payton Pritchard has been arguably the Celtics’ biggest surprise through the first quarter of the season, but he can’t be a red-hot 3-point shooter every night. That happened in the Bucks win Friday, where the guard was held scoreless in 24 minutes of action, missing all three of his shots.
But Pritchard naturally didn’t let that sink his performance come Saturday against the Grizzlies. He provided a much-needed lift for the Celtics, finishing with 22 points and six rebounds while shooting 7-for-12 from the field and 6-for-11 on 3-pointers.
“If you look at it, yeah, I didn’t hit a shot (against the Bucks),” Pritchard said. “But 0-for-3, not looking at it and kind of hanging my head over that. So, I was just looking forward to today. That’s the beauty of the NBA. You get to play another game the next day and redeem yourself.”
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The Celtics weren’t able to hold off the Grizzlies down the stretch as they saw their three-game win streak snapped. Memphis used an intriguing strategy where it left Jrue Holiday open for multiple 3-pointers. The shots weren’t going down for Holiday, though, as it was just one of those nights.
Pritchard was huge as he scored nine points in the fourth quarter. Jaylen Brown also scored 14 of his 22 points in the final frame as the C’s tried to keep pace with the Grizzlies. That’s part of the Celtics’ strength, too, where they can lean on different players and their depth depending on who has it going every night.
The Celtics will finally get some rest after a busy stretch in their schedule, playing five games over the past seven nights. They only have two games over their next 11 days after getting eliminated from NBA Cup contention. So that’s an opportunity to learn from their past wins and losses while resting up.
“Teams try to do magic tricks, pull rabbits out of their hat to try to throw us off,” Brown said. “We’ve just got to be mentally strong, encourage each other and just play basketball. Take what the defense gives us, don’t overthink it. It’ll be good to get some days off. It’s been tough scheduling.”
