DETROIT – For most of the first half Saturday night, Jaylen Brown seemed prophetic.
Last month, during a media day interview with NBC Sports Boston, he had used the Pistons as an example of an inferior opponent Boston could beat while running the offense through its bench players. On a night they were playing the Pistons, Brown said, the Celtics could play through Payton Pritchard and let him score 30 points or play through Sam Hauser and let him shoot 10 3-pointers.
Jaylen Brown:
“A night we playing, don’t mean to disrespect them but, the Detroit Pistons who have struggled over the last year or two, we gonna play through Payton, let him go for 30. Play through Sam, let him shoot 10 threes tonight. We gonna still win the game” pic.twitter.com/t1Cgu6lgdI
— Oh No He Didn’t (@ohnohedidnt24) September 24, 2024
While back soreness prevented Hauser from appearing in Boston’s 124-118 win Saturday, Pritchard opened the first half like he might do just what Brown had said he would. Over his first eight minutes, Pritchard scored 16 points with four made 3-pointers. Even one of his misses, a 27-foot pull-up four seconds into the shot clock, underscored his booming confidence. But he would cool off before finishing with 19 points over 19 minutes. The Celtics would crumble for the middle part of the game before rescuing themselves over the final four minutes. Brown wouldn’t be an oracle after all.
His comments about the Celtics’ different approach to certain games had a deeper meaning, anyway. Though the remarks garnered attention partly because he criticized the Pistons openly, he only mentioned Detroit as an example of a team that had struggled recently. With 31 combined wins over the past two seasons, the Pistons certainly qualified as that, even if they should be much improved this season under new coach J.B. Bickerstaff. Brown didn’t intend to disparage the Pistons, but to outline part of the reason why the Celtics spread the wealth to different players on certain nights.
“I think that’s the power of a great team,” Brown said Saturday. “You get a feel for it as the game goes on, how we’re playing, if we’re clicking on all cylinders or if we’re struggling, we’re missing shots or a little step slow. So we’ll see how the game is going (against Detroit) but definitely always looking to get our guys going, looking to get Payton, Sam, who’s not playing (and) is hurt for a little bit. But always looking to get guys some shots because that makes them better. As a leader, that’s what you’re always trying to think about. Can you help the people around you to flourish? Those things don’t get measured in stats, but as I’ve gotten older in my career, that’s what I’ve been about.”
Over eight-plus seasons in the NBA, Brown said he has learned how successful teams and successful leaders operate. He wants his teammates to feel empowered.
“It’s not all about you,” Brown said. “So you’ve just got to continue to keep developing. The essence of the team is to get everybody to the common goal. So you need everybody at different parts of the year to be who they are and do what they do. And I’m OK with that.”
Despite what Brown said about matchups against the Pistons, Joe Mazzulla said the Celtics don’t run their offense through different players based on their opponent. He said those calls come down to other factors, such as the lineups in the game, matchups on the court “and just kind of a feel for what we can take advantage of at that time.” He often emphasizes the need for his team to be open-minded to the idea that success can look different every night. He appreciates that his players are open to figuring out different solutions, rather than relying on the same formula all the time.
It’s a credit to Pritchard, Hauser and the rest of the Celtics bench that the team consistently plays the same brand of basketball regardless of who’s on the court. There’s rarely a dropoff when the second unit steps into the game, or when Pritchard and Hauser need to handle a bigger role.
“I really don’t think anything changes,” Pritchard said. “I just think we play a certain way and maybe that’s we handle the ball a little bit more, but it doesn’t mean we play any different. Same pace, same style, same ball movement, all that. So it’s no different really.”
The Celtics also pride themselves on playing to the same level regardless of their opponent.
“We want to be consistent,” said Al Horford. “We want to play our style of play. We want to push the pace and defend. We want to pressure. It really, really shouldn’t change depending on who we play. We are who we are.”
Pritchard doesn’t always receive the opportunity to showcase his talents, but provides occasional reminders he could do more if the team requires it. Over the 13 games in which he played at least 30 minutes last season, he averaged 21.0 points and 6.4 assists per game. He doesn’t come close to those stats most nights, but knows the Celtics sometimes need him to dial up his aggression. That can be when they are shorthanded, banged-up or simply tired on the second leg of a back-to-back.
“There are certain nights where they do need me to be Payton and be aggressive and all that,” Pritchard said. “And I take full advantage of that. I go out there and do what I do. But then there are certain nights, if I need to space the court and be a floor spacer, a hustler, whatever that kind of role gives me, I’ve gotta do it. It doesn’t mean I’m less than (as) a player. It’s just what the team needs. And we’re on a very talented team. And like I’ve always said, the most important thing in the NBA is winning. So if we’re winning then everybody eats.”
The Celtics almost went hungry against the Pistons. Still, after their first close game of the young season, some Boston players sounded excited about encountering some stress. Derrick White said it was good for the Celtics to be challenged. Jayson Tatum said he enjoyed the tests his team passed in Detroit.
“It was just fun to be a part of,” Tatum said. “Fun to be a part of those moments of, it’s not going well, it’s kind of ugly, and we’re not rattled and we figure it out. And everybody plays a part in that.”
The Boston players might have reacted differently if they had failed to stage a late comeback. Instead, after losing all of a 23-point lead, falling behind in the fourth quarter and going scoreless for more than four minutes after that, the Celtics still eventually pulled out a road victory. Mazzulla believed the Pistons were the more physical team on both ends of the court for much of the second half, but the Celtics figured out a way to come back from a six-point deficit over the final four minutes. Tatum, playing his first fourth-quarter minutes of the season after sitting out the end of blowout victories in each of his team’s first two games, scored eight points over the final 2:13 to close out the win.
He still walked away with a belief the Pistons are not the same old Pistons anymore.
“They added some vets,” Tatum said. “They got Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway, Tobias Harris, some guys that have had some success in this league and deep playoff runs, with some young talent. Detroit lost all those games in a row last year but it was because they were young, not because they weren’t talented. They’ve got a lot of talented guys over there that compete, that play hard, that are physical. So regardless of what their record is we understood coming into (Saturday night) and last year it’s going to be tough. They’re going to play you tough and make it hard on you. They were super young last year and they added some older guys and they got J.B. as a coach. So I’m looking forward to seeing what they do this year.”
(Photo of Jaylen Brown: Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
