BOSTON – The Celtics took Friday night to process their second-round exit and returned to Boston Saturday with some thoughtful perspective on the past season and how they want to attack the next one.
Payton Pritchard was one of five Celtics to speak with the media and brought several insightful points to his season-closing interview.
First, the Sixth Man of the Year brought up the concepts of disappointment and failure, and how much they differ in a situation like this, where a team set out for a goal, put everything they had into reaching it, but came up short.
“It’s disappointing for sure, for it to end, but I don’t look at it as a failure,” Pritchard said. “I don’t look at any situation like that as a failure. A failure is only when you stop trying to compete for something, striving to be your best.”
He and his teammates strived to be their best throughout the year, pulling off a 61-win regular season, playing their hearts out in Game 5 after Jayson Tatum went down with a season-ending Achilles injury, and never shying away from the constant target on their backs as defending champions.
Al Horford reflected, “I’m proud of the group and just how hard our guys worked all year, and prepared and committed to try to do the right things and keep that Celtic model and continue to get better.”
They felt that they continued to get better, even after winning a championship the previous season. However, the rest of the competition also got better, and the C’s rediscovered how difficult it is to win it all, especially to repeat as champs.
Pritchard draws inspiration from the mid-2000s San Antonio Spurs, who won three championships in a five-year span (2003, 2005, 2007) despite never repeating.
“Since they never went back-to-back, are all those years that they didn’t win a failure, or did all those years help them win the next championship?” Pritchard pondered. “It’s about attacking the next year and the year after that and never giving up on trying to achieve being on top of the mountain again.”
If anything, there’s more motivation to return to the top of the mountain after reaching its summit one year, only to tumble down the next. Because a true competitor isn’t satisfied with winning just one championship. The more often they reach the top, the more they want to stay there.
Pritchard explained, “I don’t feel like it’s, ‘Oh we won our ring. I’m a champion.’ Yes, I have that on my name, but I would like to experience that, achieve that success again. We’ll do everything – I know I’ll personally do everything in my power to help the team accomplish that again.”
First, they have to digest and grow from their loss. The Celtics believed that they let this second-round series slip away by coughing up three leads of at least 16 points to the New York Knicks. They want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“I think the part that stings the most is there’s a lot of what-ifs,” said Sam Hauser. “Especially in this last series, we felt like we maybe gave a couple away. You wish you could just go back and make one more play for the team, or get one more stop, or make one more shot to have a different result than what happened. So it definitely stings and adds fuel to the fire for next season and just trying to reload and get better and try not to have this feeling next year.”
Pritchard vowed that he’ll do everything in his power to improve for next season so that they don’t experience that feeling again.
“For me, this summer is going back and attacking everything I can get better at, be in better shape, add a couple more things to my game, and elevate myself,” he said. “I feel like I’m on the right path, and I’ll continue that. I will be a better player next year.”
“And our team,” he added,” we’ll get better and put ourselves in position to compete for another one.”
