When the Celtics returned from Philadelphia early Wednesday morning, Payton Pritchard was stewing.
He had just played his worst game of the young season: five points, three assists, three rebounds in 31 minutes in a 102-100 loss to the 76ers. He’d also managed just five points two nights earlier in a win at Orlando.
Over those two games, Pritchard took 17 shots and made just four of them. Nine of his 11 3-pointers missed their target, exacerbating a problem that’s persisted for Sixth Man of the Year-turned-Celtics starter since the season began last month.
The misses began wearing on his psyche. He fell into “a funk, mentally.”
“I was very disappointed with myself these past two games,” Pritchard said. “Kind of down in the dumps a little bit. Just overthinking the last two games. Every play. Didn’t feel like myself at all. Going home last night, I woke up this morning just hungry to attack this game and get back into the flow, get back into the rhythm.”
Before Boston welcomed the Grizzlies to TD Garden on the second night of a back-to-back, Pritchard wanted to make a change. But not to his shot, his pregame warmup or his routine.
He found the spark he was looking for in a barber’s chair.
“I got a haircut this morning,” Pritchard said. “Sometimes, you’ve got to go back to those things.”
Hours later, the freshly buzzed Boston guard got off the schneid with a 24-point, nine-assist, six-rebound showing as his team steamrolled Memphis 131-95.
Playing with an increased emphasis on pushing the pace, Pritchard shot 8-for-16 from the field and 5-for-10 from three. Just before halftime, he ran the length of the floor for a fast-break layup that put Boston ahead 67-46. The Celtics outscored the visiting Grizz by 42 points across his 30 minutes — the best plus/minus of the 27-year-old’s career.
As he put it: “It was more like me tonight.”
“The last two games, it was just a lot of overthinking,” Pritchard said. “It was like, ‘Is this the right shot? Is this the right pass? Is this the right time to drive it?’ instead of just playing with instinct. And I’m sure everybody saw it. People that I know that are close to me, obviously, were telling me about it, just that I didn’t look like myself and I didn’t feel like myself. So I just was motivated to come out here tonight.”
Payton Pritchard (11) of the Boston Celtics gets the fans going as Neemias Queta looks on during the first half during an easy win over Washington at the TD Garden. (Photo By Matt Stone/Boston Herald)
Payton Pritchard (11) of the Boston Celtics gets the fans going as Neemias Queta looks on during the first half during an easy win over Washington at the TD Garden. (Photo By Matt Stone/Boston Herald)
Consecutive duds aren’t common for Pritchard, who was able to stay reasonably productive over the first two-plus weeks of the season despite shooting far below his usual standard from beyond the arc. He scored five or fewer points in back-to-back games just twice last season.
He’s no stranger to a slump, though. After Wednesday’s win, he recalled one particularly nasty one from early in the 2023-24 season.
“I actually have gone through it a lot,” Pritchard said. “And to be honest, when I go through them is usually when I kind of break through and get a little bit better. I went through it in college, and I’ve gone through the pros a lot. I don’t know if you guys remember, but my fourth year, when I started playing again after I just signed a new contract, I think I went through a five-game stretch where I didn’t hit a three or even have a bucket. I think I went five games straight without scoring, and people started questioning whether I was worth the contract, or should I even be playing?”
Pritchard’s memory of that frustrating stretch was only slightly inaccurate. Over the first seven games of his fourth pro season, he had four nights with zero made field goals and two others with one.
“I was really down that time,” Pritchard continued. “But then getting through it, once I got through it, I started to get better and better and better. So there’s going to be low points, and it’s just, don’t let it break you. You just grow from it, learn from it and get better from it.”
The Celtics hope Wednesday’s victory was a sign of things to come. Though they were facing a scuffling opponent (Memphis had lost six of its last seven) that was missing two starters (Ja Morant and Zach Edey), it was the best collective performance of the season by Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Pritchard — the three headliners of Boston’s new-look roster.
The trio went 22-for-42 from the field (52.4%) and 10-for-21 from deep (47.6%) in the lopsided win, with White, like Pritchard, looking much more like the top-tier outside shooter he was last season. He came in shooting 28.0% from three, slightly above Pritchard’s 25.6% eyesore. Both were above 38% a year ago, when both broke the previous franchise record for made 3-pointers in a season.
Their improvements, combined with Brown’s steady scoring, helped the Celtics make a season-best 41.2% of their 3-pointers and post their second-highest point total of the season. They’re 4-0 thus far when they shoot better than 36% from three and 2-7 when they don’t.
“Sometimes it’s tough because everybody’s talking to you about it,” said White, who finished with 20 points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals and one block in 26 minutes. “Everybody’s like, ‘Keep trying, keep shooting, keep, like, we believe in you.’ You just hear that from every person. So you kind of sometimes want to just give them some space and let them process it his own way. Everybody kind of has their own way of getting through slumps and getting through tough times. And, I mean, (Pritchard) knows we’ve got the ultimate amount of trust in him that this is just a little slump, and that is we keep getting those looks that he’s been getting, that will start turning for us.”