Payton Pritchard Goes Off As Depleted Celtics Stun Cavaliers
The odds were not in the Boston Celtics’ favor heading into Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Not only were they on the second half of a back-to-back on the road, but they were also down two starters after Derrick White (calf) and Neemias Queta (ankle) were ruled out.
The Celtics have been resilient all season, however, and can’t be counted out. They proved that once again during Sunday’s stunning 117-115 upset of the Cavaliers at Rocket Arena.
Despite coming off a close road loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves 24 hours earlier, Boston started strong and led for almost the entire game after pulling ahead early. Cleveland made a late charge in the fourth quarter and nearly erased a double-digit deficit, but the Celtics held on for the narrow two-point win.
Payton Pritchard bounced back from a down game on Saturday, erupting for a season-high 42 points in the second 40-point game of his career. He shot 15-of-22 from the floor with six 3-pointers, three rebounds and three assists.
Jaylen Brown took a rare backseat in the scoring department, but he was more than happy to facilitate and feed the hot hand. He notched 19 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists in the fourth triple-double of his career, becoming the 14th player in franchise history to surpass 12,000 career points in the process.
Xavier Tillman had nine points and six rebounds in place of Queta, while Sam Hauser started for White and finished with a team-high plus-19. Anfernee Simons rebounded from a pair of quiet games with 18 points off the bench.
Evan Mobley had a big double-double for the Cavaliers with 27 points and 14 rebounds, while Darius Garland scored 21 and Donovan Mitchell had 18.
After splitting its weekend road trip and improving to 2-0 against Cleveland this season, Boston returns home for another big Eastern Conference showdown against the New York Knicks on Tuesday.