{"id":684310,"date":"2026-03-28T15:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/684310\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T15:50:14","slug":"joe-mazzulla-highlights-overlooked-area-of-payton-pritchards-game-after-latest-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/684310\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Mazzulla Highlights Overlooked Area Of Payton Pritchard’s Game After Latest Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics<\/a> picked up a 109-102 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night, even though they were without Jaylen Brown. That was thanks in large part to a heroic effort from Payton Pritchard<\/a> off the bench, as he led all scorers with 36 points.<\/p>\n

It’s been a career year for Pritchard, who has continued to take on a bigger role on offense for the C’s, even with the return of Jayson Tatum. And yet, Pritchard’s scoring wasn’t what caught head coach Joe Mazzulla’s attention in this game. Instead, Pritchard’s rebounding stood out to him<\/a>, as he hauled in a pair of particularly important offensive rebounds down the stretch of this one.<\/p>\n

“The two plays, the offensive rebounds that he got … big time plays,” Mazzulla said after the game. “I thought the ball handling, handling the pressure … two offensive rebounds that were huge for us … He’s not defined by scoring.”<\/p>\n

Standing at just 6’1, Pritchard is almost always the smallest guy on the floor when he is playing for the Celtics<\/a>. And yet, that doesn’t stop him from contributing on the glass, as he’s now averaging four rebounds per game this season. Heck, he even has a pair of games this season where he’s hauled in 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

By now, Pritchard’s competitive demeanor shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, and in a lot of ways, he’s come to personify the gritty mentality that this Boston team possesses. The Celtics will be back in action on Sunday when they square off against the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n

More NBA:\u00a0Payton Pritchard Gets Real On Importance Of His Buzzer-Beater Heroics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Celtics picked up a 109-102 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night, even though they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-684310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116307599204048310","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}