The Boston Celtics have one of the most talented rosters in the NBA. Everyone from the top to the bottom is capable of giving them solid minutes, led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Their depth of talent is one of the biggest reasons why they won an NBA Championship last season, and some guys have even improved this year.
Payton Pritchard has taken a massive leap this season, but the Celtics were always confident in his abilities. In fact, during the playoffs last year, Boston ran a drill where Pritchard would take everybody on in one-on-one situations up and down the court.
“I think I do recall this, and he just had to go one-on-one with like everyone,” Luke Kornet said after practice on Tuesday.
JD Davison and Jaden Springer are copying the Payton Pritchard Celtics drill
Head coach Joe Mazzulla said that it was just another way for the team to keep things fresh.
“Just working with our staff. At the end of the day, throughout a season, you're emphasizing the same things over and over again,” Mazzulla said. “So, how can you find creative ways to emphasize those things for us and find small ways to simulate game-like situations?
“So, just working with the player development staff, working with the guys, we have a lot of smart guys here. They come up with a lot of different drills that are important to the team, but also to the longevity of the season.”
However, Pritchard isn’t the only player who has run drills like this for the Celtics. According to Kornet, JD Davison and Jaden Springer led the way in this year’s iteration.
“I remember it was a lot of fun, but also, Payton one-on-one is generally a tough cover because he'll throw like 25 moves at you,” Kornet said. “I think it ended with someone getting some stops on him after he probably did like 15 straight isos. We did a similar thing in training camp this year. JD and Jaden were just going one-on-one with people for like 20 straight minutes. It's a war of attrition. I remember enjoying it.”
Neither Davison nor Springer has played many minutes for the Celtics this season, but the former has been enjoying a great season in Maine.
Though neither of them has been making a big impact in the NBA this season, they’ve both gotten to this point for a reason. Both are very talented basketball players and while they may not be on the level of Pritchard, it would still have been very interesting to watch them go up against the rest of the team in one-on-one drills.
