BOSTON — The Celtics closed out their regular season on a winning note Sunday, beating the Charlotte Hornets 93-86 at TD Garden. Payton Pritchard (34 points) led the way for the hosts as Boston sat their top six players in the regular season finale for rest purposes ahead of the postseason.

Boston led by as many as 21 points in a dominant first half but a plucky Hornets squad made things interesting in the second half. The visitors erased that entire lead 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 Pritchard in the fourth quarter helped Boston put a 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.

Here are four Celtics takeaways from Sunday’s game:

Starters get the day off: The Celtics first unit got a little bit of a tuneup on Friday night but the team officially pulled the plug on that group on Sunday afternoon. Boston’s entire starting five along with 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, 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.

Payton Pritchard puts finishing touches on convincing 6th man campaign: The point guard got his third start of the season and was a different level than most players that saw the floor for both teams. Pritchard was the only player to cross the 20-point threshold, 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 season.

Waiting game for Boston’s first round opponent begins: The Celtics won’t have to wait as long as last year to find out their first round opponent with the play-in tournament set to begin Tuesday night. By 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, Joe 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. Incredibly, the Celtics have gone 1-2 against both of those teams this year but much of those losses came with the Celtics missing significant talent in the lineup. Needless to say, Boston’s coaching staff won’t be losing much sleep about which sub .500 opponent they draw in the opening road.

Charles Lee has a long road ahead of him in Charlotte: The former Celtics assistant has been playing a patched together roster for the last two months amid a host of injuries and tanking in Charlotte. However, it’s hard to see a promising road ahead for this roster without some significant upgrades. They don’t 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, it’s hard to envision this team sniffing the postseason anytime soon.