Payton Pritchard’s Familiar Half Court Shot Became the Play of Game 2

DALLAS — Payton Pritchard blacked out in the moments after he hit what Joe Mazzulla later called the most important play of Game 2, a half court heave that landed successfully, boosting the Celtics ahead by eight points at the end of the quarter that sent Pritchard jumping across half court, shouting after the buzzer sounded. He remembered the moments before though, slightly amending the story Jaylen Brown told earlier this week that Pritchard subbed himself into the game.

“I didn’t go straight to the scorer’s table,” Pritchard said on Tuesday. “But I did get Joe’s attention or Charles (Lee)’s attention to it and they told me get in. I guess you can kind of say I did.”

It’s no surprise Mazzulla touted Pritchard’s play as especially important in a game that finished with PJ Washington running ahead on the fast break with 51 seconds remaining in the fourth to make it a one-possession game with Dallas trailing by five. Do the math and if all remained equal without Pritchard’s heave, Washington’s layup, which Derrick White and Jaylen Brown rejected, could’ve been to tie the game.

One reporter with more than three decades of experience covering Boston sports said it was the first time he heard one of the four major local sports coaches call the first question of the press conference, about Jayson Tatum’s performance, the wrong one. Whether to defend Tatum or emphasize the play’s importance, Mazzulla wanted to talk about Pritchard.

“It can’t go unnoticed, the humility of the team,” Mazzulla said. “You see guys around the league pass up on that shot or fake like they want to take it so that their numbers don’t get messed up. He takes pride in taking that and that’s winning basketball. That should’ve been the first question, the ability of everybody on our team to do different things that lead to winning. I’m really tired of hearing about one guy.”

Pritchard had three seconds left on the clock when he caught the in-bounds with three Mavericks lined up at half court. He dribbled to his right to catch Derrick Jones Jr. one-on-one, gave him a bump to create separation and pulled up for a jump shot measured 34 feet. It was Pritchard’s only scoring play in 12 minutes following an 0-for-7 showing in Game 1. Pritchard told CLNS Media after the game that Mazzulla showed belief to put him in that position and that it meant a lot for his head coach to highlight the play to lead off a post game press conference.

It also wasn’t the first time Pritchard took that shot, speaking all season about how he embraces whatever field goal percentage he takes from tossing up difficult heaves. At the end of the third quarter in Game 1 against the Cavs in May, Pritchard grabbed a rebound with five seconds remaining and dribbled into a 29-foot pull up three he drained over Darius Garland and Caris LeVert. While the postseason presents a different urgency, with other players CLNS talked to also expressing their willingness to take full court shots, you can see others during the regular season up-faking or eating the ball when the buzzer sounds, especially in the back court.

“I don’t necessarily practice it,” Pritchard told CLNS in May. “I feel like any shot I take can be an end of a shot clock or end of a quarter. If I’m working on transition pull-ups, that’s similar to whether I take that at the beginning of the clock or end of the clock … if you want to dive into percentages and look at what’s really good shots, what I’m shooting on those, and we can take (heaves) away, I’ll let the front office handle that. It’s a basketball play. We should take those shots, even if it’s full court. What if that goes in? That’s another three points.”

Pritchard, according to Basketball Reference, launched five heaves during the regular season, putting him in a tie for 11th place. He was one of only eight players to hit one, and is 0-for-2 in the playoffs, one of only 10 players to attempt two of them. That excludes his two long makes, so in terms of end of shot clock attempts (0-4 seconds remaining), Pritchard finished the regular season 27-for-83 (32.5% FG) and 11-for-41 from threes (26.8% 3PT). By comparison, players who took a similar number of those difficult looks late in the clock shot 36.1% (Keegan Murray), 45.1% (Nikola Vucevic), 41.5% (Keldon Johnson) and 37.8% (Dejounte Murray) from the field.

In the playoffs, among players with 16 games played, Pritchard (6-19, 31.6% FG, 5-13, 38.5% 3PT) has attempted more shots late in the clock as Naz Reid, Myles Turner, Andrew Nembhard, Jrue Holiday and Al Horford. Dallas has some players used to launching them too. Luka Dončić matched Pritchard’s five regular season heaves. Jaden Hardy got four up in his second season. Tim Hardaway Jr. managed two and Dante Exum fired up two.

“I feel like with the time running down, you can just throw it up or not shoot it,” Hardy said. “I feel like guys, when they’re finished working out and stuff, they just go around practicing half court shots, throw up some trick shots and stuff like that.”

Exum, who spent the last two seasons in Spain and Serbia before joining the Mavs, always puts up the heaves too, calling Pritchard’s a momentum-cutting play. He practices them sometimes, launching attempts from behind half court, but notes that luck comes into play. Exum steps into the shots with aim, and had a debate with a teammate in Serbia last year, Yam Madar, who preferred to just heave them without much aim. Exum emphasized that he’s hit a few in his time.

Mazzulla stresses the end of quarter runs as one of the keys to every game. At that point, Boston was 5-for-29 from deep and on the wrong end of a 7-0 run, and after Pritchard’s long make, the Celtics hit 4-of-9 in the fourth quarter that began with an 8-4 swing including that three to end the third.

“He has the humility and selflessness to not care if he misses it,” Mazzulla said. “He has an understanding how a shot like that can impact the end of a quarter and it can impact a run that a team makes. They had went on a run to end the quarter and I thought that shot gave us a little bit of a poise and a little bit of momentum that we needed heading into the fourth quarter. That was big time.”