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Boston Celtics guard Payton Pritchard took home the Sixth Man of the Year Award, the NBA announced on Tuesday.
Pritchard won the award in a landslide victory, receiving 82 out of 100 first-place votes. Pritchard finished with 454 total points, 175 points ahead of Detroit Pistons guard Malik Beasley, who finished second with 279 points.
Beasley, Ty Jerome, De’Andre Hunter and Naz Reid were the only other players to receive first-place votes.
The Oregon product’s fifth season with the Celtics has been the best of his career. Pritchard appeared in 80 games, mainly coming off the bench to provide instant offense.
Despite coming off the bench, Pritchard still logs 28.4 minutes per game and has seen his shot volume and efficiency increase. He has been shooting close to 11 shots per game, knocking down those attempts at a 47.2% clip, the highest field goal percentage of his career, and has also been lights out from deep, shooting 40.7% from beyond the arc. With his increased shot volume and role within Joe Mazzulla’s offense, Pritchard averaged 14.3 points per game, the highest of his career and a near-five-point increase from last season.
Earlier this season, in an interview with SLAM, Pritchard talked about his mindset and mentality in terms of his game. He said his mindset was: “Don’t think, just shoot.” For Pritchard, that means for any shot, from half-court buzzer beaters to pull-up triples. It doesn’t matter the difficulty, the man gets his buckets no matter the circumstances.
Especially on March 5 in a game against the Portland Trail Blazers. In a dogfight with the Cavaliers for the top seed in the East, a short-handed Celtics team squared off against the Portland Trail Blazers. Without Jayson Tatum and Kristaps Porzingis, Pritchard played nearly 43 minutes off the bench and dropped a career-high 43 points on a 14-20 shooting night. That also included draining 10 triples and posting a double-double, crashing the glass hard for 10 boards.
Nights like these aren’t uncommon for Pritchard, and with the Celtics determined to go back-to-back, expect the Sixth Man of the Year to continue turning in scoring outbursts off the bench when it matters most.
