Payton Pritchard had a huge third quarter that propelled the Celtics sans Jaylen Brown to a gutsy 112-96 win over the Raptors on Saturday.
Here are the takeaways.
Payton Pritchard went off (and kept the Celtics alive).
The Celtics were on the verge of letting Saturday’s game slip away in the third quarter, but Pritchard had no intention of letting that happen.
With Jaylen Brown sidelined on the second night of a back-to-back on the road, the Celtics trailed by seven with five minutes left in the third. They had already thrown a first-half punch with a 16-0 run in the first quarter, which the Raptors absorbed and countered, and the Celtics’ offense sputtered at times in the second and third quarters.