The defending champion Boston Celtics closed out their regular season on a high note Sunday afternoon, beating the Charlotte Hornets by seven, 93-86, at home in front of their fans at TD Garden. Payton Pritchard was on fire and led the way with a game-high 34 points for the hosts as Boston gave their top six players the day off in the regular season finale for rest purposes ahead of the postseason which kicks off next weekend.
The Celtics enjoyed a commanding lead, by as many as 21 points, in a dominant first half but a scrappy Hornets squad made things too close for comfort and interesting in the second half. The visitors erased that entire lead, 69-68, by the end of the third quarter, which led to a nip-and-tuck battle down the stretch for a young Hornets squad playing for prime and not needing to tank for draft position (they were locked into third-worst record).
Ultimately, some timely shot making from the favorite for Sixth Man of the Year, Pritchard in the final frame helped Boston put the finishing touches on a 61-21 regular season.
Boston will begin their postseason run next weekend when they will host Game 1 of the first round at TD Garden on either Saturday or Sunday.
Josh Okogie and Jusuf Nurkic each scored 14 points for the Hornets (19-63), who dropped their seventh straight game.
Neither team played any of their regular starters.
Charlotte’s Seth Curry did not play and finished the season hitting 45.6% on 3s. On Friday, he moved ahead of the Sacramento Kings Zach LaVine and became eligible for the league’s top percentage by making his 82nd.
As stated previously, the starters got the day off. The Celtics starting five got a little bit of a tune up on Friday night, but Joe Mazzulla and the rest of the coaching staff officially pulled the plug on that group on Sunday afternoon. Boston’s entire starting five along with 39-year-old Al Horford got the day off to give everyone a full week of rest for the start of the postseason which is rumored to begin next Sunday at TD Garden. Outside of Jaylen Brown’s bone bruise, the Celtics have crossed the finish line with a fully healthy squad intact, a major achievement heading into the team’s quest to repeat as champions, particularly coming off an Olympics appearance by three starters during the summer, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday.
Embed from Getty ImagesPritchard got his third start of the season and was at a different level than most players that saw significant playing time for both teams. He was the only player to cross the 20-point plateau, putting up a game-high 34 points while chipping in with strong production across the board, posting six rebounds and seven assists. With Pritchard’s main competition for 6th man failing to show much of a finishing kick to the regular season, he looks likely to become the first sixth man of the award winner for Boston since Malcolm Brogdon during the 2022-23 campaign.
The Celtics will not have to sit around and wait as long as they did last year to find out their first-round opponent with the play-in tournament set to begin Tuesday night. By 10 p.m. ET on Tuesday night, coach Mazzulla and his staff will know whether the Atlanta Hawks or Orlando Magic will be the first-round opponent for Boston as the two will face off in Orlando for the right to earn the No. 7 seed. Unbelievably, the Celtics have a losing record of 1-2 against both of those teams this year but many of those losses came with the Celtics missing significant talent in the lineup. Needless to say, Boston’s coaching staff will not be tossing and turning and losing much sleep about which sub .500 opponent they draw in the opening round.
Charles Lee has a long road ahead of him in Charlotte. The former Celtics assistant has been playing with a patched together roster for the last two months amid a rash of injuries and tanking in Charlotte. However, it is hard to see a promising road ahead for this roster without some significant improvements. They do not have any diamond in the rough in the bottom half of this roster and will head into the lottery with the third-best lottery odds.
Outside of landing some lottery luck and taking Cooper Flagg, who is projected to be the No. 1 pick out of Duke, it is hard to envision this team sniffing the postseason anytime soon.
The Hornets are done. The Celtics await their first-round playoff opponent for next weekend.
