– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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BOSTON — When the chess pieces have moved around and materially changed the Boston Celtics roster over the past couple of seasons, it seems one of the forgotten men in calculating how the team will fare in the upcoming season is super sub Payton Pritchard. That is, until he has a game like he had on Monday night to jolt observers back to reality that a Celtics’ run at championship glory in the here and now can’t happen without the production of Boston’s No. 11.
Pritchard scored 19 of his 28 points in the third quarter, making all five of his three-point attempts, as he and the Celtics’ bench were largely responsible for Boston stretching out its lead and eventually downing the Chicago Bulls 134-99 inside TD Garden. Jayson Tatum added 23 points, though three of the five players who scored in double figures for the Celtics came off the bench, which combined to score a whopping 79 points.
The 2024-25 NBA Sixth Man of the Year, Pritchard was coming off a four-point outing during Friday night’s game against the defending NBA champion New York Knicks, and had made just five of his 14 shots from the field in his first two games of the new season. In the third quarter of tonight’s game, Pritchard made seven shots from the field in a span of 8:33, knocking in a three-pointer soon as he came in after a timeout early in the quarter and did not stop until he canned a 29-foot deep ball with under a minute left in the frame — the last of three consecutive Boston possessions that ended with a made three-ball from Payton — to extend the Celtics’ lead to 31, 104-73.
“Honestly, it just feels good to catch a rhythm again, and, you know, just bounce back from the other night,” Pritchard said. “And, I kind of mentioned it but like I just have slow starts to the season, so catching a rhythm like this and being aggressive tonight was the main mindset. It feels good to see it go in.”
Boston never trailed in the game and built a 12-point lead by the end of the first quarter. The Bulls cut their deficit to three, 46-43, on a Norman Powell jumper, but the Celtics ended the quarter on a 20-11 run to reclaim that 12-point advantage at the break.
The Celtics made 21 of their 44 three-point attempts, with Paul George and Sam Hauser each making three from deep. Hauser scored 11 points while fellow reserve Hugo González had 13 points and five rebounds. All nine reserves who played for the Celtics made at least one field goal.
Powell led the Bulls with 20 points while rookie Caleb Wilson chipped in with 17 points and five rebounds.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Monday night’s game, with photos taken by ALOST photo editor Erica Denhoff. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 30 pictures in total.
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