Wednesday night’s Game 2 win will be remembered by one image:
There were certainly other instances of infamy. I’m sure Al Horford didn’t take it too kindly that Kentavious Caldwell-Pope tripped him in transition after Horford had already accused him of “something extra” when he hard-fouled Jayson Tatum in Game 1.
As visceral as though plays were, I’m going to mentally bookmark two others in Wednesday night’s win. Fresh off being named the 2025 Sixth Man of the Year, Payton Pritchard delivered in Game 2 with fourteen points. The scoring will always be Pritchard’s calling card. His 246 triples off the bench were the most in NBA history and the three threes he hit in Game 2 were momentum-making shots in the gritty win.
However, Pritchard is also an underrated defender, a part of his game that should be equally spotlighted with his high-volume, 40.7 3FG% this year. So far as a primary defender in this series, the Magic are shooting just 4-of-15 against Pritchard, including 2-of-9 when he’s targeted by Orlando’s star duo, Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero. Case in point:
Payton Pritchard won Sixth Man of the Year bc of his offense, but the dude gets it done at the other end of the floor every night. Look at this. Against Paolo Banchero — who has nine inches and 55 pounds on him. This is ridiculous! pic.twitter.com/yThgDXLWbL
— Marc D’Amico (@Marc_DAmico) April 24, 2025
Kristaps Porzingis catches that errant elbow from Goga Bitadze on that Banchero miss and that will be the lasting image, let’s not forget the picture-perfect defense from the 6’1 David on the 6’10 Goliath. KP gets gashed between the eyes, but Pritchard is the one slingshotting stones.
And with Orlando nibbling at the Celtics double-digit lead in the final minutes, we get some PP magic of our own. Leveraging his three-point gravity, Pritchard not only cuts back door late in to the shot clock, but as soon as he gets lost in the trees, he’s crafty enough to slip out of the woods and with that Sixth sense, conjure up an and-1.
If it bleeds, it leads. I get it. But those two plays from Pritchard are more indicative of what this series has so far been about for the Celtics: being able to defend Orlando’s two stars with an all-hands-on-deck approach and just figuring it out on the offensive end despite the Magic’s physicality.
There might have been a natural tendency to shy away from the contact and chuck up more shots from behind the arc. However, the Celtics haved matched Orlando blow-for-blow with Boston’s big men taking the brunt of the Magic’s brutishness and their smallest player landing body blows of his own.
