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KC Johnson: Celtics 125, Bulls 111 Wilson 23 pts (6-11 3PT), 5 rebs, 4 assists, 2 blocks, 1 steal Powell 16 pts Essengue 10 pts (first NBA double-digit game) Pritchard 30 pts Tatum 26 pts, 7 rebs, 7 assists
K.C. Johnson: Celtics 134, Bulls 99 Powell 20 pts Wilson 17 pts, 5 rebs, 3 blocks Swain posts first NBA points in mop-up time Pritchard 28 pts, 7-10 3PT Tatum 23 pts, 7 rebs, 6 assists
PAYTON PRITCHARD IS at the Celtics bench when he feels a tap on his shoulder. It's late April, and time is running out in Game 3 of the first round of the playoffs. Boston has padded its lead to 103-98 with just over a minute to go, and a win on the road in Philadelphia is in sight. That's what the Celtics usually do, after all: beat the Sixers in the playoffs, every time they've met in the postseason in the past 44 years. Pritchard has rained 3s tonight, five in all, to help with their latest effort, so who knows what kind of Philly-cooked hospitality awaits Pritchard right now. He turns to find a man even shorter than he is -- a rarity for Pritchard on NBA courts -- who is swathed in all black. Black leather jacket, black T-shirt, black baseball cap. It all provides a stark canvas for the man's necklace, a blinged-out Roman numeral III, that glints when it hits the arena lights just right, and -- "Oh, s---," Pritchard thinks. "That's ..." Allen Iverson looks at Pritchard, Pritchard remembers, and says: "You're the coldest white boy I've ever seen."
He is the NBA's unlikeliest iso king. And so it only makes sense that in the presence of Iverson, patron saint of undersized iso kings, Pritchard's most urgent thought is this: "That's AI." And his second-most urgent thought: "I gotta turn up. Now I gotta go crazy."
ON THE LAST day of September, with the Celtics two days into training camp, Pritchard and Mazzulla convene in a two-man huddle on the team's practice court. There's a good deal of hand waving, and at one point, Mazzulla sort of elbows Pritchard, perhaps the better to demonstrate the play they seem to be hashing out. It all looks very serious because Mazzulla is famously Very Serious, but then something startling happens. Mazzulla breaks character, then breaks out in a bona fide smile. Mazzulla ... likes Pritchard. What's more, he likes to count on him. "I'll always bet on Payton," Mazzulla says.
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Ambition once drove Payton Pritchard to want out of Boston. Now, after signing a two-year contract extension, he is grateful that the opportunity he craved came from the Celtics. “It means a lot from obviously Brad (Stevens) and the organization, Bill (Chisholm) and all them, to offer that,” Pritchard said after practice Sunday morning. “And so I’m definitely grateful for it and just happy to have signed another two years on it to be in Boston. And I love it here. I like competing for the city and competing for the organization. And so I feel very honored.”
“I feel like $22 million a year is quite a lot of money, especially with (what) I was going from making about ($8 million),” Pritchard said. “So I thought it was — I don’t know, sometimes I like to just take that, and then you can always work for the next one. So stay hungry and maybe go get after the next one, be a better player — three years down the road, maybe I’m a better player, and then hopefully I can get rewarded like that again.”
Celtics officially announce Payton Pritchard's extension
— John Karalis (@johnkaralis.com) 2026-10-17T15:35:58.925Z
Bobby Krivitsky: Joe Mazzulla on Payton Pritchard a day after agreeing to his contract extension: “When people think of a Celtic, he’s one of the first people that comes to mind.” Mazzulla later added: “He’s one of the guys that doesn’t have an ego.”
The Celtics now have $108 million committed to Jayson Tatum, Payton Pritchard and Neemias Queta for 2029-30, more than half the projected cap for it.
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Pritchard agreed to a two-year, $44.2 million extension that will keep him under contract through the 2029-30 season, league sources confirmed to The Athletic. The extension will have a mutual option for the 2029-30 season, according to those sources, who were granted anonymity because the deal has not been made official.
Keith Smith: Payton Pritchard is extending via the Estimated Average Player Salary (EAPS). Because his current contract is less than EAPS, Prichard is eligible to extend for 140% of EAPS with 8% raises. That should look like this for Pritchard: 28-29: $21.2M 29-30: $22.9M (mutual option)
Shams Charania: Boston Celtics guard Payton Pritchard has agreed to a two-year, $44.2 million contract extension, plus a mutual option in the 2029-30 season, CAA Co-Head of Basketball Austin Brown and agent Max Saidman tell ESPN.
Sam Quinn: Pritchard was capped at around $67 million over three years. Most veteran extensions are capped at 140% of the salary on the final year of their existing deal... but Pritchard's last deal was so low that is instead extending off of 140% of the estimated average player salary.
