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Doc Rivers explains why Payton Pritchard’s buzzer-beater left him hunched over in disbelief
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Celtics
“This morning I literally circled his name”
Payton Pritchard erupted for 28 points in 28 minutes off the bench in the Celtics victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday night.
Pritchard went 8-for-12 from 3-point range, tying the franchise record for most made threes off the bench in a single game.
Bucks coach Doc Rivers said something told him to pay attention to Pritchard before the game.
“Payton Pritchard happened. Honestly, it’s so funny but it’s not. This morning I literally circled his name,” Rivers said. “It’s like this guy comes in and he’s a gamechanger. I don’t know if you remember last year, but we had a six point lead and he came in and changed the whole game. He did it again tonight. He got their three ball going.”
Pritchard worked his buzzer-beater magic yet again Monday night, sinking a step-back 3-pointer in the closing seconds of the third quarter to give the Celtics an eight point lead heading into the fourth.
TV cameras showed Rivers hunched over in disbelief after Pritchard sank the shot.
“We just had to challenge him to the middle,” Rivers said of his reaction. “We talked about it this morning. At the end of the quarter he always tries to break off right. We went over that. And so, it wasn’t a Pritchard reaction. It was more of my reaction. This was something we covered, we were there, and we let him go right.
“When he went right, I didn’t know that it was going to go in,” Rivers said. “But I just didn’t think good things were about to happen. And it didn’t.”
Pritchard said the buzzer-beaters can hit like a gut punch, which is why he takes them. The momentum swings off of a make are “crazy,” he said.
“I just live for those moments with the clock winding down and I think it was like six seconds left,” Pritchard said. “So just to get to a spot and raise, I just kind of black out in those moments and let it fly. Obviously it works out a lot of the time for me.”
Pritchard’s shooting jumpstarted the Celtics’ outside game. Boston missed it’s first seven shots of the game. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum were a combined 1-for-12 from 3-point range. Al Horford went 2-for-2, and Jrue Holiday went 4-for-7, helping raise the team’s percentage to 38 percent.
“I try to go into every game with the confidence to be aggressive,” Pritchard said. “Looking for opportunities to attack, to get my shot off. And then, defensively just picking up and being like a pest.”
“Obviously I’m not the biggest person in the world so I’m not going to be able to bump down low or things like that,” Pritchard added. “It’s really just about the energy I’ve got to bring coming off the bench. Some nights our starters might have low energies. It’s a long season. So I’ve got to be responsible to bring it that night.”
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Khari A. Thompson
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