Luke Kornet’s legacy game saved Celtics’ season with fate of franchise in the balance

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BOSTON — In the purported last gasps of the Boston Celtics’ season, of possibly an entire era, blood was everywhere.

Josh Hart sat on the ground after taking a Luke Kornet shot to the eye, blood smeared across his face. Across the court was Kornet, a patently unserious man, nursing a gash on his elbow.

But this was a serious moment. The Celtics’ backs were pressed against the walls after Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles and the New York Knicks put them on the brink of elimination. They entered the night needing Jaylen Brown to overcome his balky knee to deliver a star performance. The Celtics desperately needed Kristaps Porziņģis to shake off this virus that has plagued him and just look like a semblance of a unicorn again.

Brown was delivering, but Porziņģis was still a shell of himself. With Mitchell Robinson continuing to dominate off the bench, Kornet needed to step up. Though the Celtics will likely see actor and Knicks fan Ben Stiller courtside for Game 6, Sam Hauser could’ve sworn he saw his “Dodgeball” character on the bench Wednesday night.

“I think (Kornet) channeled his own inner White Goodman there,” Hauser told The Athletic. “Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.”

Trainers wrapped Kornet’s arm up, sent him back out there, and watched his energy catalyze the rest of his team. So when Joe Mazzulla found Porziņģis back in the locker room, he knew what he had to do. The coach said it was apparent his star center “couldn’t breathe” running up and down the court.

Mazzulla held on to the idea that Porziņģis would find his game again for way too long. He should have benched Porziņģis and elevated Kornet sooner. Porziņģis was limited in this series just to the same kinds of actions Kornet runs, but doing it with less force, coordination and touch.

The Celtics coach had no choice but to make the move he should have a week ago. It was time to start Kornet in the second half.

The ensuing period was Kornet’s best performance of his career, with 10 points on 5-for-5 shooting, nine rebounds and a career-high seven blocks. It even spawned a viral meme that made it all the way to the Celtics locker room.

pic.twitter.com/NgqshAd4y8

— Only In Boston (@OnlyInBOS) May 15, 2025

“It’s funny, you put a sleeve on Luke Kornet, he turns into Bill Russell,” Hauser said after the Celtics beat the New York Knicks 127-102 Wednesday to force a Game 6 in New York on Friday evening. “Someone texted (the meme) to me. It’s hilarious. They look pretty similar.”

This was a quintessential Kornet moment, surreptitiously aggrandizing while capturing the spirit of his accomplishment. Listening to the Celtics’ 7-foot-2 backup center talk, he always dances around the line of serious and surreal. But he always has his teammates’ respect, earning it through his smart and effective work on the court and recognizing when he has, often comically, exceeded his limitations.

So when Kornet had the game of his career, his team was thrilled, amused and just grateful.

“I know we joke about that stuff all the time, but you talk about legacy games and what he did, it was that special,” Horford told The Athletic. “Just inspiring, locked in, and his defense, his presence is what got us through that moment.”

Kornet didn’t just bring physicality but also precision. He kept blocking shot after shot from behind, providing the roving rim protection the Celtics have been begging for. He would close out to shooters without overrunning them, managing to still lock them up when they tried to drive past him.

He even forced an airball by Mikal Bridges at the end of the third quarter just to tie the bow on the perfect period. He enveloped the Knicks offense in a way that nobody on the Celtics has come close to all series. For the first time outside of Game 3, the Celtics looked like themselves.

Thanks for coming to Luke’s Block Party 🥳 pic.twitter.com/TugGxEFLHV

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) May 15, 2025

Kornet’s dive out of bounds — as well as Jaylen Brown’s — created an energy in the third quarter that even got Al Horford to take it to the next level.

“That sparked all of us,” Horford said. “It’s one of those things that you think you’re playing hard, (but) I just think that his will was just special. So amazing. He looked unbelievable. That alley-oop he caught there in the end, unreal.”

Kornet’s seven blocks were a career high, as he just managed to smack away shots all over the court with impressive accuracy. The Celtics center said he felt lost in the moment, not second-guessing or doubting anything.

He was in a flow state of shot blocking that made the Celtics look like a team that could improbably get back in this series.

“It, like, is weird to say if that’s actually real or it just quantifies,” Kornet said. “There’s the old hot hand fallacy. I don’t know if that applies to blocking shots. Somebody can do the research.”

The wins the Celtics have earned in this series are unlike any others they’ve experienced in the past two seasons under Mazzulla. He spent most of the afterglow of his victories in that time preaching the dangers of success, how the satisfaction of winning chips away at the fear of losing. He was talking to a locker room that was coasting through the league with remarkable ease, but now this a team remembering all those lessons from the top.

Against the Knicks, their wins have been season savers or even franchise savers. We examined Wednesday how the Tatum injury could reshape the landscape of the entire league. But if the Celtics keep pushing and pull off a miracle run without him, it furthers the chances that maybe new ownership will hold off the cap sheet cavalry.

It’s a truly disconcerting place for a franchise perennially at the top of the league, but they’re winning on borrowed time. In the wake of it all, Kornet repeated a mantra Mazzulla has been ingraining in his team throughout the season.

“You have to love the situation you’re in and can’t really control that, but you can control how you respond to it,” Kornet said. “And whatever the situation is that presents itself is the exact situation we’re meant to be in and we need. So, yeah, that’s the one thing you can do about it and the one thing you can kind of operate on in life.”

Kornet had to bark out to the adoring crowd and his adulating teammates, but also to the end itself. The Celtics have eschewed surrender for one more night, shedding the shock of the Tatum Achilles tear in crunch time of Game 4.

Had they held it together that night and pulled off the comeback, they would have arrived in Boston tied up and would be heading back to New York right now looking to get to the next round. But they have to love the situation they’re in right now, as perilous as it might be. There’s no choice.

“There was just an energy in the building tonight, but mainly an energy within us in the locker room, just it’s like do or die,” Hauser said. “If we lost, our season is over and it’s the same situation going into Friday. We win, keep going. We lose, the season’s over. It’s as black and white as that.”

However the Celtics manage the challenge of this moment, Kornet will be out there making plays and having fun. He scores and flutters his hands like a dove, or whatever wacky celebration he’ll come up with next. But the gravity of the moment comes through.

“Just trying to live in the moment and survive in the moment,” Kornet said. “But the barking has gone on, so shout out to the barking.”

(Photo: Charles Krupa / Associated Press)

This news was originally published on this post .

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