CLEVELAND — While Payton Pritchard dressed a few feet away, several Boston Celtics teammates marvelled at his exploits Sunday night.

During the conversation, Josh Minott wondered if Pritchard established a career high by scoring 42 points in a 117-115 win against the Cleveland Cavaliers, but was informed the guard actually fell one point shy of his best scoring output ever. Anfernee Simons, sitting nearby, knew too much about that game. In a detailed fashion, he remembered some of the incredible shots Pritchard knocked down in March against the Portland Trail Blazers, when Simons still played for that team.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Sam Hauser chimed in.

The Celtics had seen Pritchard take over games before. Once he got going in Cleveland, they understood how difficult stopping him would be. As the Cavaliers pulled closer and closer throughout the fourth quarter, Boston repeatedly put the ball in Pritchard’s hands. He rewarded his team’s faith with 15 points over the final 5:19, including 8 of the Celtics’ final 9 points.

One of Pritchard’s clutch baskets came after the Cavaliers cut an 11-point Boston lead to three with 45 seconds left. After calling for a screen from Hauser, Pritchard found the matchup he wanted against Darius Garland. Nearby on the court, Jaylen Brown stepped back to give Pritchard all the space he needed. The guard drove to his spot a step inside the free-throw line, stopped abruptly to create space and drained a short jump shot over Garland.

PAYTON PRITCHARD DROPPED 42 🔥

Straight buckets in the Celtics’ win vs. the Cavs 💰 pic.twitter.com/YK8Wxzgw6a

— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) December 1, 2025

“Just playing the game the right way,” Brown said. “He liked the matchup. He had it going. So, hey, I get out of the way and let Payton do what he does.”

In a game Brown finished with a triple-double of 19 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists, it wasn’t lost on Joe Mazzulla that the All-Star let Pritchard close things out. Brown assisted on two straight Pritchard baskets midway through the fourth quarter as the Celtics were fending off a Cleveland run.

“To me, it’s just having a great balance of understanding when it’s his time versus when it’s time to make a play,” Mazzulla said. “And I think that’s been a huge growth of his, not just this year, but I think in the past as well. And that’s what you want out of your best players. And I think he takes just as much pride in watching someone else close the game as he does in closing it himself. And you kind of saw those plays that he was able to make throughout the game.”

Brown said he told Pritchard that the next step in his evolution was to close games like that.

“You’ve got the ball, get people where you want ’em to go,” Brown said. “Put people in the right spots, slow down, get everybody composed, just get a good shot. And being able to manipulate the game. And I think he did a good job of that tonight.”

The Celtics needed all of Pritchard’s production. After taking a 104-93 lead with 4:32 left, they allowed Cleveland to pull within a single possession twice in the final minute. But on the first occasion, Pritchard sank a pull-up jumper to push the Boston lead back to 114-109. He then sank two free throws with 5.9 seconds left after a Cavaliers 3-pointer had cut the margin to 114-112. Following another Cleveland 3-pointer, Brown sank one of two free throws with 0.7 seconds left. The Cavaliers had a chance to tie at the buzzer, but Evan Mobley couldn’t attempt a shot in time after catching an inbounds pass from Donovan Mitchell.

Pritchard set his previous season high of 30 points during a Nov. 16 win against the Los Angeles Clippers. Without Derrick White (right calf contusion), the Celtics needed more from Pritchard on Sunday. He started the scoring by drilling a 3-pointer when the Cavaliers left him wide open on the first possession of the game, then added two more long jump shots to give him eight points over the first 1:46.

Pritchard picked up his third foul midway through the second quarter, but Mazzulla trusted him to play through the foul trouble. Pritchard made Mazzulla look smart by scoring eight points over the rest of the quarter while avoiding his fourth foul. Pritchard entered halftime with 18 points before adding another nine in the third quarter and 15 more in the fourth.

The Celtics led by as many as 21 points in the third quarter, but the Cavaliers shot 14 for 24 from the field in the fourth quarter to give themselves a chance. Brown and Pritchard kept Boston in front down the stretch. With the Celtics in danger midway through the fourth quarter, Brown overpowered the Cavaliers to draw a couple of shooting fouls before handing out two consecutive assists to Pritchard. The second Pritchard basket in a row gave Boston a 104-93 lead. He said Brown’s playmaking was “phenomenal.”

JB➡️Payton

JB & Payton were rolling through the 4th and capitalized on this play making it tonight’s @JetBlue Play of the Game 🤝 pic.twitter.com/G5NiXhkyKP

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 1, 2025

“He’s our best player,” Pritchard said. “So I think what he’s capable of doing is he can affect the game in different ways on different nights. You’ve seen the night before, he had 41 (points). He can put on a scoring display. And then he can have a night like tonight and have a triple-double and affect the game, which is even more impressive because he really missed a lot of shots that he usually hits. So imagine he hits those shots, he’s looking at a 30-ball, triple-double. So the growth and everything, it’s impressive.”

After the game, Mazzulla told his team that it was a “great mindset win.” On the second leg of a back-to-back, the Celtics were without two starters in White and Neemias Queta (left ankle sprain injury management). They committed 19 turnovers, some of them strange enough that Brown said it seemed like “the ball had butter on it or something.”

“I don’t know if they were (bad) turnovers,” Mazzulla said. “It was like we couldn’t catch for a little while. And it was just weird. I thought we fumbled a couple balls out of bounds, had a couple of rebounds and it was just kind of — to me the point was we were playing with a level of effort and a level of connectivity. We just had to execute a little bit better. And I think (on the) second night of a back-to-back, a couple guys out, that’s what you care about most is the effort and the level of connectivity that you have. And I think the other stuff comes throughout the game.”

Without Queta, the Celtics again experimented with their frontcourt. Xavier Tillman, who had played five total minutes over the last 11 games, delivered 9 points, six rebounds, three steals and a block in a rare start. Like Tillman, Jordan Walsh delivered key hustle plays. The third-year wing collected his first career double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Pritchard was the star, though. After scoring just 9 points on 4-for-14 shooting in a close loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday, he made it a point to bounce back on the second leg of the back-to-back.

“I’m a competitor,” Pritchard said. “And sitting in my (hotel) room last night and this morning, it’s just like you can either fold and give into it and the thoughts can go into your mind, but for me it’s like, ‘Today I’m going to come out, and I’m going to give it everything I got. I’m not going to second-guess anything. I’m going to treat it like it’s a summer day in the gym, when it’s just me.’”