It's wild to watch him stonewalling LaVine and Harden. He's strong, quick, and gets into guys, so he can hold his own against a lot of guards and wings. Obviously centers and big wings can own him in mismatches....but now I'm describing nearly every sub 6-5 guard in the NBA.
Payton Pritchard says PRabbit, PRabbit on the First of Every Month
- Thread starter MyDaughterLovesTomGordon
- Start date
Karalis writes about Pritchard and shows some of his crafty offense.
https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2024/11/30/a-deeper-look-at-how-payton-pritchard-went-off-in-the-fourth-quarter-to-beat-the-bulls
Here, Brown has the ball at the top of the key. Pritchard is on Brown's left, guarded by Josh Giddey. The Bulls are switching everything. When Pritchard moves towards Brown, Giddey reads that Pritchard will be setting a screen for Brown and moves to pick up Brown. But Pritchard does not set a screen - he just crosses behind Brown's defender from Brown's left to right. Brown's defender stays on Brown, Giddey belatedly realizes what is going on and chases Pritchard, but Brown makes the easy pass to Pritchard who gets the open look.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsX0Arz0Kk
There was also this pay where Pritchard gets a screen from Queta, Vucevic switches onto him, and Pritchard drives to the rim and expertly maneuvers Vucevic under the basket where he cannot block the shot.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=727DGQrT73Y
https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2024/11/30/a-deeper-look-at-how-payton-pritchard-went-off-in-the-fourth-quarter-to-beat-the-bulls
Here, Brown has the ball at the top of the key. Pritchard is on Brown's left, guarded by Josh Giddey. The Bulls are switching everything. When Pritchard moves towards Brown, Giddey reads that Pritchard will be setting a screen for Brown and moves to pick up Brown. But Pritchard does not set a screen - he just crosses behind Brown's defender from Brown's left to right. Brown's defender stays on Brown, Giddey belatedly realizes what is going on and chases Pritchard, but Brown makes the easy pass to Pritchard who gets the open look.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsX0Arz0Kk
There was also this pay where Pritchard gets a screen from Queta, Vucevic switches onto him, and Pritchard drives to the rim and expertly maneuvers Vucevic under the basket where he cannot block the shot.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=727DGQrT73Y
The excellent long range accuracy is impressive, but I’ve been more impressed with how PP has figured out how to get his layup attempts off against bigger covers, which basically is everyone who ever covers him, eighteenth directly, or on switches.
I’m reluctant to say never regarding PP, but he’s probably never going to have a floater game, since his strength is off two legs, where he can use his strong base, but he has figured out how to score in the mid-paint with a crafty turnaround jumper after bodying a defender.
He’s also averaging almost twice as many offensive rebounds per game as Jayson Tatum. SSS, of course.
I’m reluctant to say never regarding PP, but he’s probably never going to have a floater game, since his strength is off two legs, where he can use his strong base, but he has figured out how to score in the mid-paint with a crafty turnaround jumper after bodying a defender.
He’s also averaging almost twice as many offensive rebounds per game as Jayson Tatum. SSS, of course.
Those volume stats are nutz, his half-court buzzer heaves should probably be deducted (for those that like to see a higher %)
Attempts + Distance + Pull-Up 3s = all kinds of space for the JAYs/White to operate.
He's at 68% TS...screw it he probably starts for every NBA team, other than the Celtics, with that number
78 percent of Pritchard’s shots are from behind the arc, 159 of 204. He is 11-17 on middies, 4-9 from 3-10 feet, and 14-19 at the rim, for a total of 64.4% from two, after going 57% from two last season. Only taking mid range shots when absolutely necessary has upped his efficiency. One third of his shots last year were non-threes/non-layups, and this season it’s only 13%.Those volume stats are nutz, his half-court buzzer heaves should probably be deducted (for those that like to see a higher %)
Attempts + Distance + Pull-Up 3s = all kinds of space for the JAYs/White to operate.
He's at 68% TS...screw it he probably starts for every NBA team, other than the Celtics, with that number
He is reminding me a bit of Tyler Herro. Put 6MOY in his pocket this year and it will really cement it.
I'm not entirely convinced that deducting the half-court heaves would bring his % up by much. He always seems to make them when I'm watching, at least.
They started defending him from doing half court heaves, which is hilarious, so there probably wouldn't be too much of an adjustment these days.
What will be spectacular is PP getting fouled on a half-ending 50 footer and calmly sinking the FT to close out the half with a 4 pt play.
Fred VanVleet is on a 3/$129 million deal. PP is a better shooter and not as good as a table setter, but he is at 1/6th the cost this season.
Comping PP to high scoring bench guys, Malik Monk just began a 4/88. Buddy Hield was a value signing at 4/38. Malik Beasley was a smart value signing by the Pistons at 1/6 million
I don’t know about Conley, since Minny needs a table setting PG. PP should start over Russell, and would be a national folk hero if he played on the Lakers.
If teams are convinced his defense lets him play 25-30 mins in the playoffs, probably 4/42 to 4/55? Something in that type of range.
He definitely fits the typical profile of a 6th man winner, unlike someone like Horford (he barely missed being eligible last year because he started more games than he came off the bench, but honestly should've gotten some discussion for the consideration he played). Brogdon, Herro, Clarkson, Lou Williams, Eric Gordon, Jamal Crawford, Jason Terry, Leandro Barbosa, Ben Gordon...microwave guards with questionable defense who put up 15-20 ppg off the bench (and don't contribute much else), that archetype has won 13x in the last 20 years.
He's a pretty massive favorite right now, -140 against the field (Hield, Jerome, Monk, Amen Thompson and Eason are all on the board at about +1500).
He's a pretty massive favorite right now, -140 against the field (Hield, Jerome, Monk, Amen Thompson and Eason are all on the board at about +1500).
I just saw something where three of his teammates have drastically higher shootin* percentages with Conley
It probably will help that the Celtics are on national tv all the time, and PP’s long distance shotmaking tends to come in eye popping bunches
Tbf, you tend to shoot in eye-popping bunches very very often when you're shooting like 47% on non-heaves and 11 attempts/36.
And he had arguably the most memorable moment of the finals and garnered national acclaim for hitting crazy shots at the end of quarters throughout the playoffs. His national profile is definitely high enough for him to win the award.
Pritchard feels like the sort of player who loves his teammates but roots for injuries. On the flip side, its nice to have him as an option when you have an injury to Derrick White. My guess is that neither the C's coaching staff or Pritchard wants DWhite to rush his recovery time.
Pritchard has improved significantly and is a top of the line regular season bench player, but I still think he's the kind of guy who has far more regular season value than playoff value. Dude is scrappy, but his physical limitations are still likely to get him hunted come playoff time. Still a great player to have around no matter what, he's fun to watch, and one of the better contracts in the leagues.
If he continues to shoot 3s at a much better clip than Dame has ever dreamed of, PP's role will be expanded, he'll have lost that scrappy label and be a key player in the playoffs.
His long-distance 3s, with volume, will open up more drives for him & his teammates as the season progresses.
PP is averaging 8.4 3PA/gm this season.
It took 7 seasons before Steph averaged more 3PA/gm (during his second MVP season).
Steph shot 44.4% from 3 over those first 7 seasons.
Does anybody know if Gary Washburn still grills Coach Joe about 3PA in post-game pressers?
Pelicans starting PG is Dejounte Murray who is injured.
Toronto have Quickley at PG (also injured).
I think he’d definitely start in Washington and BKN. Probably SAS. A conversation could he had about Portland and Utah but both of those teams are heavily invested in Scoot and Keyontae respectively so I think they’d stick with what they got
That’s pretty much every 6MOY Award winner though. They are typically scorers who are defensively challenged so utilizing them on the second unit adds a shot creator outside of the starters while limiting his defensive ineptitude against opponents second units.
Exactly. Except for weird cases like Manu, most of these 6MOY guys are like "no shit, if I could also defend at a top level I'd be starting and making a ton more money."
He has become my sons favorite player to watch, just huge swagger and pure spark. He’s the perfect fit here, I don’t know how that plays on other teams and I hope not to find out.
Right.
And PP's on-ball pressure is a nice twist against opposing bench guards. He's just the perfect 6th man microwave (that the Cellar has been clamoring for).
Plus PP is the type of high-usage scorer/shooter that can carry a defense-first, energy BIG that exist on many NBA rosters
Right, I just think some of these guys who score less are more valuable playoff players. Pritch is also on such a good contract, you’d be getting back a starter elsewhere caliber guy, and maybe even a pick on top. But, again, this is really just theory since the cap restrictions on Boston and there aren’t any great salary match contracts on the roster anyway, plus he’s awfully fun to watch and root for so whatever.
Just kind of a fun theoretical debate.
Dame is probably a good player for this discussion, as I think he’s the most overrated player in the league and has been for a while. Abysmal defense only gets your team so far, and I couldn’t be happier to witness this Jrue/Dame exchange playing out in real time.
Pritch certainly does not lack for effort in the D department like Dame, and he does appear to be improving, so we’ll see what happens. Already this year, though, we see Pritchard getting stuck in switches in the paint against someone with 6-12 inches on him and, despite his best efforts to stand his ground, giving up easy buckets. It sticks out on this team like a sore thumb, because everyone else has size. I’m a defense-first guy in the playoffs, but if he’s really shooting 40% volume in the playoffs and can play good on-ball D, it’ll be fine.
The thing with a guy like Pritch, though, is if he gets off rhythm shooting early and starts 0-4 or something in a playoff series, he’ll quickly become unplayable (except for heaves!), especially on a roster where you have 3-4 legit ball-handlers. It’s a lot of pressure. I’m also still worried about banging inside in the playoffs against someone like Hartenstein/Giannis/Allen/Lively, though a lot of that can be allayed if Queta’s energy can be harnessed for the power of Good.
Last edited:
We had this conversation about Pritchard and defense and the playoffs around this time last year. There were many here saying similar things then—Pritchard would be exposed or unplayable in the playoffs. The prior postseason stats didn’t back that up then but had a more limited sample size since he had had a fairly limited role the prior 2 years (about 10 mpg). Last year, his role expanded significantly to nearly 19 mpg and the team played virtually exactly the same level of defense with him on the court v. off (108.6 NBA Defense Rating on v. 108.2 off). That makes sense because Pritchard’s defense is about average to slightly below. It’s that way in the regular season and he’s held up at that level in the playoffs over a pretty meaningful number of minutes now. There’s no evidence to support the persistent narrative here, which is admittedly losing adherents, that Pritchard might morph into a defensive black hole in the playoffs. He doesn’t. His defense is fine. It’s not great, but it’s fine.
Yup. We compare Pritchard to an imaginary 6-5 guy with a long wingspan who also hits 44% on high-volume 3-point shooting.
In fact, the real comparison is guys like Halliburton (who is worse defensively despite the length) and TJ McConnell (who is a similar size but holds up defensively, and is worse offensively).
When you're talking about guys on 4/$30M 2nd contracts, it's all about tradeoffs. No one in the NBA has superstars in that salary slot as their 5th-7th man. Pritchard is at a very, very good point in that tradeoff space, and is totally playable in lots of playoff matchups.
It held up in certain matchups and didn’t hold up in others….which one would expect from a player with such physical disadvantages so overall it wasn’t really fine. He was fine against Miami and Cleveland only to be repeatedly torched by McConnell and ultimately lose minutes in the Indiana series as he couldn’t keep him in front of him. Dallas was next and they would constantly hunt him w Doncic and his offense suffered too leading to even fewer minutes.
Indy did take advantage of him matchup wise. Dallas did not. The team had a 98 defense rating with Pritchard that series. The problem was that he couldn’t shoot at all that series, so the offense was bad when he was out there.
Yeah, Pritchard is better defensively than Garland, Haliburton, and McConnell. That doesn't make him good, but the "unplayable" narrative is played out. If he continues to shoot like he has been, and drive and make decisions like he has been, he's going to play 20+ min in the playoffs in most matchups and often not be the worst defensively player on the floor.
Results lie. Doncic missed a ton of bunnies after the switches, Mazzulla saw how the Mavs solved the hunting issue and quickly pulled him in nearly every game.
Yeah I think we need to stow the narratives about what the C's have in Pritchard. What he is doing on offense is pretty special.
Has he been picking up tricks from other short guards? Or has that just been in his bag forever and being unleashed as he's forced to find new ways when defenses adjust to him?
He’s always had those in his bag against lesser players. He showed this at Oregon and had like 90 in a summer league game…..but now he’s figured out how to do this against NBA players.