Why Payton Pritchard's rise makes Celtics likely repeat champions

It's one thing to have stars, but the Boston Celtics are unbeatable when their role players also play like stars. That's what happened when Derrick White and Payton Pritchard became the first Celtics teammates to score 40-plus points in the same game in their 128-118 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday.

They were the first duo with nine or more three-pointers each in a game, as White had nine and Pritchard had 10, both career highs. It's one thing for White to go off, as he's a starter who averages 16.7 points per game. Pritchard, though, is another story.

The fifth-year guard is averaging a career-high 14.4 points on 47.9 percent shooting with 3.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists across 28.2 minutes despite having no starts thus far. That's a 4.8-point increase and a 5.9-minute increase from the career-highs he set last season.

The Celtics, of course, cruised through their championship run in 2024 with a 16-3 playoff record after a 64-18 regular-season campaign that topped the NBA. Boston still has all its essential contributors from that run, and now, an improved Pritchard.

The Oregon alum said he was motivated to improve this past offseason after shooting 7-for-28 (3-16 3 PT) in the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks, via The Athletic's Jay King.

“It lit a fire under me,” Pritchard said. “Am I willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the team? Of course. But I never want the reason why I’m not playing to be the way I was playing. I wanted to get better (over the) summer and show that I’m capable of playing at the highest levels.”

The 27-year-old worked on his off-dribble, movement shooting and conditioning. Now, he's a frontrunner for Sixth Man of the Year and Most Improved Player of the Year.

If the Celtics dominated the league without an elite bench player in 2024, what's stopping them from coasting to another ring this season? While their roster is scarily deep, the NBA landscape differs from last year.

For one, the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers have already clinched the playoffs. Evan Mobley's (18.6 PPG, 9.3 RPG) career year along with the Cavs' deadline acquisition of De'Andre Hunter (18.1 PPG) is a lethal combination with six-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell and two-time All-Star Darius Garland in the backcourt.

Then there's the Oklahoma City Thunder out west, who have MVP frontrunner and scoring leader Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (32.8 PPG) to go with Jalen Williams (21.4 PPG), Chet Holmgren (15 PPG, 8.5 RPG), and an elite rebounder in Isaiah Hartenstein (11.3 RPG).

However, neither of those teams is established in the playoffs. The Thunder fell to the Mavericks in the second round last season after three straight losing campaigns, and the Cavs were bested by Boston in the same round after getting upset by the New York Knicks in the 2023 Eastern Conference quarterfinals. They didn't make it the year before that, their first with Mitchell.

Meanwhile, the Celtics have made two of the last three Finals and finished one win away in 2023. They attended three Conference Finals and another Conference Semifinals from 2017-22.

Experience matters in the playoffs, and now they're even more formidable with Pritchard's rise. No team is invincible, but Boston is as close as it comes.