LOS ANGELES — Jaylen Brown broke right into a toothy grin as he chest-bumped Payton Pritchard on the middle of Crypto.com area, moments after Pritchard crossed up Austin Reaves en path to his sixth three-pointer of the evening.
Brown, Pritchard’s longest-tenured teammate, relished the offensive explosion.
“Payton has been enjoying at an All-Star stage,” Brown mentioned after the Celtics 111-89 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. “And I’m comfortable to see it. No one happier to see it than me.”
Pritchard’s three-pointer prolonged the Celtics’ result in 22 factors, their thirty seventh win of the season all however secured. And, a staff that was as soon as heralded by many as destined for the lottery prolonged their lead for second place within the Japanese Convention.
On the sidelines, Jayson Tatum chuckled, in awe of Pritchard’s masterful offensive show (the Celtics guard completed the afternoon with 30 factors on 10-14 capturing).
However afterwards, in quintessential style, Pritchard mentioned he wasn’t a completed product.
“[There’s] one other step I can get to,” Pritchard mentioned. “So, simply gonna maintain working — and I’m gonna get to it.”
In a single sense, Payton Pritchard was the story of the Celtics’ blowout win over the Lakers — the 27-year-old has been on a tear as of late, averaging 23.6 factors and capturing 54.4% from the sector in his final 7 video games (since Anfernee Simons was traded to the Chicago Bulls).
Payton Pritchard, the NBA’s best isolation scorer this season, overcame an ice-cold begin to the yr to common 17.6 factors and 5.4 assists per sport, each career-highs.
However, was Pritchard the story of the Celtics’ Sunday afternoon victory? Is he the story of the Celtics’ season?
Jaylen Brown, in fact, deserves loads of the limelight
Within the victory, Brown talled 32 factors, 8 rebounds, and seven assists, placing forth one other all-around efficiency that earned reward from LeBron James himself.
“This complete MVP factor, I don’t perceive why his identify will not be getting talked about some as nicely,” James mentioned, per CLNS Media. “Like, no person gave them a shot to begin the season. And he’s averaging what, 30 [points]? Just below 30? It’s a recognition contest typically, I let you know.”
Brown has obtained his fair proportion of accolades this season; in January, he earned his first-ever Japanese Convention Participant of the Month choice. Final week, he began in an All-Star sport for the primary time in his NBA tenure. And, earlier than the sport, Lakers head coach JJ Redick said merely that there have been no holes in Brown’s sport.
Is Brown’s leap the story of the Celtics’ season?
There’s a robust case to be made. Jaylen Brown has performed a few of the finest basketball of his profession, averaging 29.2 factors, 7 rebounds, and 4.9 assists — all career-highs.
It’s uncommon for a participant of their tenth season to make such a considerable lap — Brown is scoring 7 extra factors per sport than he did final yr — and it’s the primary time in his profession he’s been in MVP conversations.
“I really feel like I’m the very best two-way participant on the earth,” Brown mentioned. “I play each ends on the courtroom night-to-night. I’m out there, which is difficult to do. I’m a pacesetter. Assist lead my staff, empower my staff to return out and play confidently, stuff that doesn’t all the time present up on the analytics. And I’m a winner. I come out and attempt to win each single evening.”
In some methods, Celtics-Lakers was all in regards to the younger bucks
It’s laborious to boil down the Celtics’ success to the elite play of 1 participant, when all season lengthy has so loudly been in regards to the staff. Contributions have come from totally different gamers each evening — for a stretch, it was Josh Minott beginning video games for Boston (Minott is now not on the staff).
For a couple-month interval, Jordan Walsh, who began 20 consecutive video games, was the discuss of the city. For a stretch, it was Hugo Gonzalez, who started to interrupt by way of at simply 19 years outdated.
An indicator attribute of this group has been that no matter who is obtainable, the identical consideration to element is on full show.
These days, Sam Hauser and Baylor Scheierman recurrently begin video games for Boston, with Pritchard and Nikola Vucevic coming off the bench.
There have been turning factors in Sunday’s beatdown that felt just like the Celtics’ success may largely be attributed to the staff’s trio of younger defenders: Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez, and Jordan Walsh.
Mazzulla mentioned that Brown pulled all three apart — in addition to Sam Hauser — at Saturday’s apply in Santa Monica in an effort to go over a few of the Lakers’ stars offensive tendencies. That additional scout carried over into Sunday’s sport; James, Austin Reaves, and Luka Doncic mixed to shoot simply 22 of 53 (41%) from the sector.
And, Brown preferred what he noticed from that trio in motion on Sunday afternoon.
“Hugo made some huge performs for us,” Brown mentioned. “Baylor was wonderful tonight. Protection is what we’ve acquired to proceed to raise.”
The Celtics, in flip, tallied their third consecutive victor.
They now have the NBA’s fourth-best file (trailing solely the Detroit Pistons, Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder, and San Antonio Spurs) and third-best web ranking (trailing solely the Pistons and Thunder).
After the win, Mazzulla was requested what he thought was the story of the Celtics’ season.
His reply completely mirrored the Celtics’ mindset: deal with the precise now, on the controllables. Deal with the method, not the end result.
“The story’s not accomplished,” Mazzulla mentioned. “We’re solely a product of what we do tomorrow, what we do the following day, and that’s simply the story. If we might have misplaced this sport by 1, tomorrow’s movie session [would have] to be as detailed and as disciplined as it will be with the end result that we had. And in order that’s the story. It’s not accomplished but.”
Mazzulla doesn’t count on Monday’s Celtics movie session to really feel any totally different on the heels of a victory as it might really feel after a loss. After the 22-point win, he famous the Celtics gave up two back-cuts and an after-timeout lob to LeBron. He additionally famous that the Celtics overhelped on a number of three-point makes an attempt.
All of these performs — win or loss — is what the group will deal with tomorrow.
“We haven’t accomplished something,” Mazzulla mentioned. “All we’ve accomplished is follow the method of successful on each ends of the ground, put our head down. [We] don’t overreact to an excellent win or to a nasty loss. And, [we] get higher within the subsequent sport.”
