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The Celtics will face an old friend when they take on the 76ers on Tuesday night: Jaylen Brown, who spent a decade in Boston before being traded to Philadelphia on Tuesday.
And Payton Pritchard, one of Brown’s longest-tenured teammates, looks forward to the match-up.
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“I definitely had a lot of good memories with JB,” he said in front of an unusually large media corp at the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia. “Obviously, he was there from the moment I got drafted, and we had a good competitive battle. He pushed me to get better, so I’m definitely appreciative of that. And then, as far as tonight, two really great teams going at it, and there’s nothing better than that.”
Still, although there’s heightened public interest in this match-up, the added emotions are nothing that he and the Celtics aren’t used to.
“I’ve played a lot of playoff games, so I don’t think it’ll be that much different,” Pritchard said. Three of those games came at the very arena where the Celtics held shootaround on Tuesday morning, just a few months ago, in the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs
Much of the discourse heading into Tuesday night will center on the dynamic between Brown and Jayson Tatum, whose relationship has been heavily scrutinized for years, especially in the last few weeks.
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Paul George said he expects another big night from Tatum amid all the chaos.
“JT is locked in,” George said. “He’s as professional as they come at preparing for a game. He’s been playing at an MVP level, and I think he’s looking at it as another game on the schedule. Obviously, there’s a lot of noise surrounding it that hopefully he’s not lost in. But it’s our job to support him, to help him do it, and make sure his focus is where it needs to be for us to come out here and have a chance to play against a really good team and continue to add to his MVP-performance resume this season.”
Pritchard was asked at shootaround what people don’t understand about NBA locker rooms, and how they differ from the locker rooms the general public is more familiar with, such as high school locker rooms.
“There’s a lot of egos in it, and people…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/payton-pritchard-paul-george-preview-170625992.html
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Publish date : 2026-11-10 17:06:00
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