The Boston Celtics’ NBA Summer League run ended in the polar opposite fashion in which it began. Instead of being the conquering victors who came into the game with the highest point differential, they left Tuesday night’s title tilt with nothing to show for it after optimism ran wild the first four games.
Ultimately, the lack of hardware from this summer’s Vegas state won’t have too much of a negative effect on the outcome of the upcoming 2021-22 campaign, but we can glean a few takeaways from Summer League play.
Here are 5 the Houdini came up with:
Boston Celtics Summer League takeaway #1: Payton Pritchard can’t be the primary backup PG on a contender yet
Payton Pritchard was the C’s leading Summer League scorer heading into the championship game, but he laid an egg with the lights shining (relatively) bright. He didn’t score his first basket until the very waning seconds of the second quarter and was locked down by Davion Mitchell and co. throughout the first half.
There were efficiency improvements the second half, but ultimately the Kings game proved that Pritchard’s handle and ability to get to the basket aren’t up to snuff against the best defenses out there. And we’re not saying the Sacramento’s Summer League squad is anything resembling that, but it was a baseline test that was not passed.
Pritchard has had some success against NBA second units (and some rough outings to show as well), but we’d still prefer to see Dennis Schroder absorb the backup minutes, which seems to be the current plan in Boston.