The Boston Celtics will be without rookie Payton Pritchard after spraining his MCL on Friday night vs. the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Boston Celtics haven’t had the greatest start to the 2020-21 NBA season, but if there was one bright spot, it was rookie point guard Payton Pritchard. Unfortunately, the rookie went down with a right knee injury on Friday night during Boston’s 122-110 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. One day later, the team received word on the extent of the point guard’s injury.
According to Tim Bontemps of ESPN, Pritchard suffered a Grade 1 MCL sprain and will be out for at least the next two weeks.
Pritchard avoids serious injury
In the first quarter of Friday night’s game, Pritchard was standing in the paint waiting to grab a potential rebound. At that same moment, 76ers center Dwight Howard bumped into Celtics forward Jaylen Brown, causing him to fall into Pritchard’s right leg. The rookie immediately grabbed his right knee and had to be helped off the court by Boston’s training staff. The guard was ruled out of the game shortly afterwards.
After receiving the MRI results, Pritchard is expected to return to “on-court activities” in two weeks time.
The Celtics selected Pritchard out of Oregon with the 26th-overall pick in this past year’s NBA Draft. Pritchard was given extensive minutes to start the season after the team was without starting point guard Kemba Walker for the start of the season. The rookie stepped up, and he thrived.
In 14 games, Pritchard averaged 7.7 points, 2.6 assists and 2.4 rebounds in 20.9 minutes, while shooting 48.8-percent from the field and 42.5-percent from the three-point line.
The rookie luckily avoided what could have been a serious injury, but the Celtics will have to prepare to be without him for the next couple of weeks.