On Saturday, Boston Celtics guard Payton Pritchard set an NBA record that will make it difficult to vote against him for the Sixth Man of the Year award.
Pritchard notched 22 points on five 3-pointers in the C's 115-113 win over the Brooklyn Nets. With his fourth make from deep, he surpassed Wayne Ellington for the most 3s off the bench in a single NBA season (219).
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With 14 regular-season games still left to play, Pritchard has a chance to own the single-season record by a significant margin. It's a remarkable feat for the 27-year-old, but it was business as usual for him after the historic performance.
“It just means I did my job off the bench at a high level, and hopefully I can continue to do that," Pritchard said.
Pritchard isn't focused on his 3-point record or the NBA Sixth Man of the Year award, which he currently is favored to win. He simply wants to continue his development into one of the game's best.
"There's no records, there's no awards that I ever look at," he said. "It's all about self-improvement, looking at every game, what I can do to keep growing and keep bettering myself. Ultimately, that's all that matters to me is trying to take another step. So hopefully I can keep that going."
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla is proud of how far Pritchard has come since being drafted out of Oregon in 2020.
"If you count the the amount of timely shots that he's hitting and the timely offensive rebounds that he's gotten -- he had one tonight coming out of the timeout when they went zone, in the corner, which just has an ability to impact the game in so many ways," Mazzulla said.
"Just continues to get better and better. His competitive nature and work ethic's unreal. So that's an awesome thing and it takes a special person to fulfill that role, and he takes pride and does it every day."
Pritchard is now averaging 14.1 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game this season with a 41.8 shooting percentage from 3-point range. He'll look to repeat Saturday's performance when the Celtics host the Nets for a rematch on Tuesday.
