Simone's Six: Pritchard's fire, Doncic's defense, and the ultimate rivalry in Celtics-Lakers

LOS ANGELES — It was Pat Riley’s day at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday night. But Payton Pritchard didn’t get that memo. Or, more aptly, he didn’t care.

A special day honoring Riley and his accomplishments in LA, culminating in a statue reveal outside the arena, was taken over by Pritchard, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics.

But how did it happen?

1. Payton Pritchard dominates

Pritchard only made two threes in the third quarter. Just two. But with the way he was moving, you would have thought he made 10.

The first was a contested triple over his former teammate, Marcus Smart. He drained it and immediately mean-mugged the Boston bench. Not long after, he sank another and skipped back down the court on defense. His confidence was at an all-time high.

That all came after a halftime buzzer-beater that rang throughout the entire arena. Celtics fans erupted as Lakers fans fell into a stunned silence. It was pure dominance every step of the way.

Pritchard has admitted that, when he’s in the zone, he’s not thinking. He’s acting. Trusting the hours and hours of work he’s put in over the years. So, what is going through his mind?

“Just reading and reacting,” Pritchard said. “Seeing which way their hips are turning, their feet, where I can get separation. I try to pride myself on being able to score in a variety of ways from all three levels, and just making reads off that. And if I can get by him, and a guy comes over to the rim, then I make the two-on-one read.”

Watch this play. Pritchard gets Jake LaRavia on him at the top of the key and goes to work.

First, LaRavia’s hips are angled left, so Pritchard tries to drive away to catch him off guard. But LaRavia recovers. No problem for Pritchard. He dribbles behind his back, sees LaRavia get his hips square, and drives back the same direction.

That forces LaRavia to finally commit, and at that point, Pritchard has him right where he wants him: Off-balance. A quick between-the-legs dribble later, and Pritchard is driving right with LaRavia on his back foot.

At that point, he’s just a turnaround away from an open shot, which he sank.

Pritchard is one of the best isolation scorers in the NBA. And Sunday night was a perfect example of that.

2. Lakers didn’t want to guard

That’s not just an observation. It’s what Brown saw unfold.

“Just play with pace. Try to get those guys to go ahead and play end to end, and play both ends, is what we wanted to make them do,” he said. “They kind of wanted to slow the game down. That's why they went zone. It's something that we have seen in spots, but not for like a whole quarter. They went zone for that whole first quarter, like a matchup zone, trying to hide guys from certain matchups and stuff like that. So, they did a good job, because it was like a zone to man. It's kind of what their coverage was. 

“They started out in zone, but after the first initial pass, then they would go man, and they were just trying to do all this stuff, all these other coverages, to hide the fact that they didn't want to guard us. And JJ [Redick] did a good job of that, because it took a while for me to get going. Took a while to find our spots. But once we got to it, we opened up the game a little bit.”

LA wanted to hide its defensive weak points. Brown didn’t name who those players were, but a quick glance at their early-game coverage revealed the truth: They didn’t want Luka Doncic guarding in space.

But Boston forced him to. Every chance they got, they played fast, preyed on LA's slow pace, and forced Doncic to guard. It worked beautifully.

3. Best defense is offense

Doncic, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves combined to score 60 points. That’s two points fewer than what Pritchard and Brown combined for on their own, and much less than they average as a trio.

The three Lakers stars also shot just 22-of-53 (41.5%) from the floor and 5-of-16 (31.3%) from downtown. So, how did the Celtics do it? How did they slow down the Lakers?

By attacking them.

“You're never gonna stop them,” Joe Mazzulla said. “I mean, those guys are really good. I think it's just leveraging what you can live with and what you can take away. And you talk about, everybody is like, 'How are you gonna defend him? How are you gonna defend him?' You gotta attack him. We had 14 turnovers, but I think eight of them were dead-ball turnovers, so they can't get leak-outs, they can't get transition threes. 

“So, you have to play coherent, efficient, disciplined, real offense. And so, I thought we did a good job of that, and then, they only had one dunk. They average five. That helps a lot. And we just didn't give up the little stuff, whether it's the cuts. And then, just credit to the guys for rebounding. So, they're so good, they just test your discipline, and I thought the guys did a good job of that throughout the game.”

Boston attacked all three guys on both ends of the floor. Obviously, as previously noted, they dragged Doncic into as many offensive actions as they could. They made him play defense. Tired him out.

Simultaneously, Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scheierman were as physical as can be with him on the other end. They made him work for every dribble, drive, and shot he took.

They were honed in on the tendencies and executed the game plan perfectly.

4. Controlling turnovers

Both teams found success in transition. Early in the fourth quarter, Boston’s offense went through a