Pritchard’s Sixth Man quest amid four Celtic early-season surprises originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Boston Celtics will reach double figures in games played with the visit of the Brooklyn Nets on Friday.
Three weeks of regular-season basketball seems like a large enough sample size to pick up some early-season surprises for a team coming off such a dominant season that it’s not always easy to exceed expectations. But here are four Boston players who are doing just that:
Getting steamy for Neemi
With Kristaps Porzingis sidelined to start the season and needing to step up 38-year-old Al Horford during his 18th NBA season, it was fair to expect Boston’s depth centers would get a bigger chance to start the year. But few could imagine how fourth-year center Neemias Queta took his early rise in play.
Over the last five games, Queta is averaging 8.4 points and 6.6 rebounds in 21 minutes per game, including two point starts. Here are some numbers that jump off the page with Queta:
Boston’s defensive rating drops to 95.4 in its 125 minutes on the court. The Celtics are 13.9 points per 100 possessions better with Queta on the court. His +22.7 net rating is the best on the team and 5.7 points per 100 possessions better than Derrick White, perennial leader in the net rating category.
The 25-year-old Queta is not much different from his brief cameos last season. But his combination of youthful energy, physicality and athleticism meshed well with whatever lineups he was thrust into.
Queta’s five-man pairing of White, Horford, Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday is Boston’s second-most common five-man unit this season and has posted a +29.0 net rating in 34 minutes. It’s a very small sample, but of the 42 five-men with at least that much time together this season, that’s third in the NBA entering Friday.
The Queta/Horford duo has logged 55 minutes together in double-major lineups and has a +22.2 net rating. In 72 minutes with Queta as the only big one, Boston’s net rises to +30.6. Queta is second in the NBA in offensive rebounding percentage, grabbing 14.7 percent of his team’s missed shots.
Queta was repeatedly put in difficult defensive spots on Wednesday night against the Warriors, including being asked to defend Steph Curry out near the 3-point line. Queta held up well, even if Boston was bitten at times by not having him near the basket to clean up missed shots. That kind of versatility should only help him continue to see the floor, even when Boston’s bigs are at full health.
JMark from there
Second-year wing Jordan Walsh had a forgettable summer and it was fair to wonder if he showed enough to muscle his way into more consistent playing time in Year 2. But after promising to put his summer struggles behind himWalsh distinguished himself with his high-energy play in the preseason and is an open opportunity at the start of the 2024-25 regular season.
Walsh, dubbed a “violent defender” by his college coach at Arkansasshows his defensive potential at the NBA level. Opponents are shooting 13.2 percent below the expected production against Walsh to start the season. The 20-year-old is holding opponents to 30.8 percent overall (8-for-26) including just 10 percent from beyond the 3-point arc (1-for-10).
Walsh also shows his versatility, typically guarding bigger forwards, but also taking turns on smaller guards like Charlotte’s Tre Mann. Atlanta’s Jalen Johnson was 0-for-4 shooting against Walsh with two turnovers and a blocked shot in Walsh’s longest head-to-head matchup of the season.
Walsh has technically played in more games than Xavier Tillman this season, which is a surprise on its own, even though Tillman entered Friday’s game with 2 more minutes of floor time overall.
Walsh’s shot still isn’t falling with any regularity — he’s 4-for-15 to start the season, has missed 10 of 12 3-pointers — but the shot looks good, and it’s the defense that is Walsh’s ticket to play more time Boston’s best rebounding rates are during Walsh’s floor time, showing part of the boost they get from his energetic game.
pritchard is (Sixth) Man of the people
Let’s be clear that Payton Pritchard thriving to start the season is far from a surprise. That he’s in the Sixth Man of the Year conversation isn’t really a surprise either. (Hell, we picked him to win the award before the season.)
What is surprising is how quickly he went from virtually impossible to find in the Sixth Man betting odds before the season to being entrenched at the top of the odds early in the NBA season. Going into Friday’s action, Pritchard had the best odds (+400) on DraftKings with Golden State’s Buddy Hield (+500) the closest competitor.
Now we know how it works with the Sixth Man award. Usually the honor goes to a powerful bench scorer, and being on a successful team can also help a player’s case. If the Celtics flirt with 60-plus wins and Pritchard remains in a strong role even as the team is closer to full health, he will certainly be in the conversation.
Pritchard is having his most efficient season of his career thus far. He averages 139.0 points per 100 shot attempts, which is best among all point guards in the NBA, according to data from Cleaning the Glass. Erase some of those late-game misses chasing the garbage-time 3-point record against the Knicks, and Pritchard is 56 percent on corner 3-point attempts (9-for-16) and 43 percent above the break (26-). for-60).
Even with those shortcomings, he’s at 41.6 percent on 3-pointers overall. An astounding 72.9 percent of Pritchard’s points came from 3-point attempts, the largest percentage in the NBA. (Klay Thompson is second at 69.8 percent of his points from 3s.)
Pritchard is fourth on the team in minutes behind only the gold medal trio of Tatum, White, and Holiday. The Celtics own a +14 net rating in his floor time, one season after he finished second in the entire NBA at a +13.6 net rating. (Only teammate Sam Hauser, +14.2, was better among all players with at least 65 games played.)
D-White’s 3-point barrage
Even in Boston’s 3-point happy offense, it was a little unsettling to see how many 3-point shots Derrick White was getting up on a nightly basis.
Although his first half season in Boston, White averaged only four 3-point shot attempts per game in his NBA career. This season? That number is up to an astounding 9.6 3-point attempts per game.
No one’s complaining, though: White is hitting a career-best 41.9 percent of those attempts while averaging 19.8 points per game. If you already suspected that White might be flirting with All-Star consideration again, his 3-point heroics should only further help him finally knock down that door.
White reached double figures in 3-point attempts in five of Boston’s nine games. That included hoisting 16 triples (and making a season-high seven) against the Warriors. If teams put all their attention on Tatum, then White will make them pay. Imagine the looks he’ll get when Jaylen Brown returns from his hip injury.
White’s scoring average is up 4.6 points per game from last season, jumping to 19.8 points per game thanks to his 3-point shooting. White is tied for 37th in the NBA in points per game after ranking 72nd for the 2023-24 season.
