Payton Pritchard Drops 92 Points During Pro-Am In Portland, Oregon
By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Payton Pritchard had been dominating the Summer League in Las Vegas, but had to leave the Celtics over the weekend due to a prior engagement. That prior engagement was a Pro-Am in Portland, Oregon, and Pritchard dominated that as well.
The legend of Payton Pritchard continues to grow as Boston's backup point guard had a Pro-Am for the ages late Saturday night, dropping an absurd 92 points in his home state. High-scoring outburst in Pro-Ams are nothing new, as former Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas dropped 81 points in Seattle just last week, but 92 points is a truly epic performance.
Pritchard's team -- aptly called Team Prichard -- needed all 92 of those points, too, eking out a 165-163 win over Next Level. Defense was very much optional (read: non-existent) during the game, as it tends to be during Pro-Ams. Highlights from Pritchard's monster evening are starting to surface (you can watch the fourth quarter here), and are pretty entertaining for Celtics fans.
Pritchard was hitting some ridiculously deep threes in Summer League, and that farcical range followed him home to Portland on Saturday:
Pritchard, whom the Celtics drafted with the 26th overall pick out of Oregon last year, averaged 7.7 points off 44 percent shooting during his impressive rookie campaign for Boston. He appears poised to make a big jump in Year 2 after averaging 20.3 points and 8.7 assists in Summer League action, hitting 58 percent of his three-point attempts while shooting 51 percent overall.
A perverse performance like 92 points in a Pro-Am should just add to the 23-year-old's confidence heading into the 2021-22 season.
