Payton Pritchard, Derrick White make NBA history as Celtics beat Trail Blazers
Published in Basketball
BOSTON — Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were one of the most prolific perimeter shooting duos in NBA history. But even they never accomplished what Payton Pritchard and Derrick White did Wednesday night.
Pritchard and White became the first pair of NBA teammates ever to make nine or more 3-pointers in the same game, doing so in a 128-118 win over the Portland Trail Blazers at TD Garden.
Both players set career highs for points (43 for Pritchard, 41 for White) while going a combined 19 for 33 from beyond the arc. It was the first time in the 79-year history of the Celtics that Boston had two 40-point scorers in the same game.
Pritchard also led all players with 10 rebounds, with White adding three steals and a block for a Celtics team that was playing without starters Jayson Tatum, Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday.
The Celtics attempted 11 3-pointers in the opening 10 minutes and made just three of them. All three came off the right hand of Pritchard, who carried Boston’s sluggish offense after checking in at the 6:51 mark.
Pritchard’s first two makes came on consecutive Celtics possessions. On the first, he used a vicious stepback to shake Scoot Henderson before draining a 26-footer over the 2023 second overall pick. Matched up against Henderson again three minutes later, Pritchard elevated for a corner 3 that beat both his opponent’s tight defense and the shot clock.
White joined the party with back-to-back 3s late in the first quarter, and Pritchard followed with his fourth of the frame to fuel a 14-3 Boston run. Points were hard to come by from the rest of Boston’s roster, however, and Portland held a five-point lead midway through the second.
Brown got off to an especially difficult start, misfiring on six of his first seven field-goal attempts and picking up one offensive foul. Between the fourth quarter of Sunday’s loss to Denver and the first half against Portland, Brown missed six straight shots in the paint — a trend he partially blamed on lingering knee pain.
The NBA Finals MVP finally settled in around halftime, scoring on Boston’s final three possessions of the first half and its first of the third quarter. But first, the Celtics benefited from another 3-point barrage from White and Pritchard. The former hit three long-range shots in 78 seconds to tie the game at 51-51, and he and Pritchard each added another later in the quarter as Boston built a double-digit lead. Pritchard also grabbed an offensive rebound off an Al Horford miss and scored an and-one putback.
In the first half, White and Pritchard combined for 41 of the Celtics’ 66 points and 11 of their 13 3-pointers (on 18 attempts — a superb 61.1% shooting percentage). And they weren’t done.
Pritchard was downright unguardable in the third quarter, draining another five 3s and pouring in 19 points. He went 7 for 8 from the field in the quarter, and Henderson drew loud boos from the Garden faithful when he fouled Pritchard with 4.1 seconds remaining rather than let the red-hot Celtics scorer attempt another shot.
By that point, Boston’s lead had swelled to 102-82, with Portland only remaining remotely competitive thanks to an outlier shooting night from reserve forward Jabari Walker. Walker, a 26.1% 3-point shooter who’d made just 12 all season entering Wednesday, went 6 for 6 from deep for the visitors.
White made his eighth and nine 3-pointers early in the fourth quarter, and the Celtics looked primed for a runaway “Gino Time” victory. But the Blazers rallied late, cutting a 25-point deficit to eight after Horford was called for a flagrant foul on what officials determined was a reckless closeout.
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