Keeping Payton Pritchard Proves Wise For Celtics Against Grizzlies

BOSTON — Payton Pritchard stood in the Celtics’ locker room neither relieved nor dejected. He’s here, he said.

He prepared for anything at Thursday’s trade deadline, and believed he stood an equal chance to move or remain with Boston, despite a string of interviews where he revealed that he told Brad Stevens and the Celtics’ front office he preferred a larger role. That could include on this Boston team, and he received one again on Sunday when Malcolm Brogdon missed the game as a late scratch with achilles soreness.

The Celtics nearly traded Pritchard and Danilo Gallinari for Jakob Poetl, according to multiple reports, and returned to land Mike Muscala later that afternoon, who Stevens checked in on numerous times. The trade acquired a big man with a more narrow skillset than Poetl’s, but kept Pritchard on the roster for games like the Celtics’ 119-109 win over the Grizzlies, where he scored 12 points on 4-for-7 three point shooting and added three assists to wake up Boston’s offense after a slow start.

Results will dictate the success, whether the Celtics need better big depth due to injuries, or turn out to need Pritchard, because the guards in front of him go down in the postseason. Boston hedged as best as they could against both scenarios, with their future assets falling short of more premium centers.

The Celtics became concerned enough with their big man depth to add to it, searching through numerous options and reaching within the ballpark of the amount needed to trade for Poetl, a starting-level big. They needed to sacrifice the ability to play Pritchard while Smart and Brogdon miss time. Doing so and including more future assets, their only way to improve affordably against losses, tax payments and trading players on rookie contracts, played into deciding to let Toronto win the bid. It cost too much.

“Payton’s really good,” he said on Friday. “Inevitably, last year, we played at least a couple of playoff games without (Marcus) Smart. You don’t know what’s going to happen, and Payton’s a good player who has proven he can play in the playoffs. It’s not an easy situation for him, but like I said earlier, we could play him at the point and bump others up to the wings and those have been good minutes, because they’re good players.”

Rookie J.D. Davison hasn’t played significant minutes in Boston all season and a sparse buyout market already began with Danny Green reportedly passing up Boston to sign with the Cavaliers. Former stars Russell Westbrook and John Wall will likely become free agents seeking larger roles than the Celtics could provide.

That mentality drove Boston’s deadline approach, and Stevens didn’t want to acquire players who would eat minutes from those currently on the Celtics. That included Sam Hauser, who hit 6-of-11 from three and matched his season high in the win over the Grizzlies. Mike Muscala proved able to play alongside Blake Griffin on Friday against Charlotte and Luke Kornet against a Memphis team that played big too. That’s the way the Celtics will prefer to play, given the addition. Pritchard held optimism he can find ways to help, too.

“My mind’s already been reset,” Pritchard said. “I’ve been open about where I was at and I’m here now. I’m a professional at the end of the day, I show up, Imma work and any minutes I get, I’m gonna play, because I love to play basketball. This whole thing everybody’s been saying, I love the city, I love this organization, I love my teammates, this is one of the best. That’s what this whole thing was about, me wanting to play, because that’s what I love to do. That’s all it’s been about. I’m here and I do love it here, so I’m committed. I want to help.”

The Celtics ask Pritchard to do different things depending on the game, scrambling him out of mismatches defensively and sometimes asking him to battle bigger players with help. He rarely played on-ball early on and honed his off-ball movement skills over the offseason to prepare him for a role where he’d play alongside other guards. Derrick White led to point of attack again on Sunday and Pritchard got to lead the bench, and after a 6-for-12 start for the offense with six turnovers, he entered the game and fired a skip pass to Muscala for a three.

Pritchard hit back-to-back-to-back threes between the first and second quarters to secure a lead. He fed Grant Williams in the third quarter, after they briefly relinquished an 11-point halftime lead, to go ahead again and did the same later when Memphis fell asleep as Grant cut for a dunk. The Celtics hadn’t tapped into Pritchard’s playmaking and appear able to benefit from it in spots, even if it’s allowing him to create his own looks off the dribble.

After the weekend pursuit of Green faltered, Boston won another game without Brown and Smart after beating Philadelphia and Charlotte in recent short-handed efforts. The all-star break looms, and the bench keyed a string of six wins in seven games. White, who will eventually return to the Celtics’ bench, averaged 24.5 points per game over the last four games. Hauser hit 57.6% of his shots from three. Muscala started his Celtics career shooting 46.2% from deep and Griffin converted 5-of-8 against Philadelphia. All those efforts withheld the Bucks, 1.5 games back of Boston entering their meeting on Tuesday, despite Milwaukee winning 10 straight games.

“When Mike came here, I told him, ‘cherish this,'” Mazzulla said. “Because this might be one of the best locker rooms you have. The guys that we have and basketball players. The ability to be professional, regardless of their circumstances, is special. Fortunate to be around that … I love Payton. I’m happy Payton is expressing himself, and the honesty that he speaks with, I think it’s important to talk about that stuff, because at the end of the day, I trust him completely and regardless of his circumstances, he’s always ready to play. He’s the ultimate professional. He’s in the category of, regardless of what’s going on, he’s ready to play at all times. So it’s very important to have him.”

“Sometimes you can get caught up in acquiring talent, instead of acquiring the right situation. I think we have a group of guys who are in a great situation and they take advantage of that by playing together and being ready.”