The Celtics have bogged down. An offense that blitzed the NBA, scoring 120.2 points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions during the regular season and 120 points-per-100 in its five-game postseason-opening victory over the Magic, has ground to a halt against the Knicks, producing a measly 99.5 points-per-100 across two games — both of which, in case you missed it, Boston lost after squandering massive leads.
Whether you attribute that primarily to Boston’s players just missing shots they’ve made all season, to the Knicks’ sudden shift to switching ball screens forcing the Celtics out of their comfort zone, to their stars lacking some ineffable clutch gene, or a little bit of all of the above, at a time like this, you’d imagine the C’s would love to get something easy. To be able to take advantage of the switching by tossing the ball to a big guy who can take a smaller defender into the post and shoot over the top of him, or to punish New York’s bigs by drawing them out into deep water on the perimeter with the threat of high-volume, high-accuracy 3-point shooting.
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The thing is, Boston does have an easy button like that. It’s just not really working right now.
Kristaps Porziņģis’ versatility as an inside-out offensive weapon was integral to Boston’s run to the 2024 NBA championship. He was a mismatch nightmare in the Celtics’ final regular-season matchup against the Knicks, scoring 34 points and drilling eight 3-pointers in a 119-117 overtime win. Through the first two games of the Eastern Conference semifinals, though, an illness-stricken Porziņģis has yet to make his presence felt, averaging just four points and four rebounds in 13.5 minutes per game.
“I’ve had ups and downs throughout up until this point,” Porziņģis told reporters after Game 2. “I just now had a big crash and my energy, my everything, hasn’t been good.”
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Trying to climb out of an 0-2 hole, with Game 3 at what’s sure to be a raucous Madison Square Garden on Saturday, the Celtics could really use the return of that easy button. The looming question: Is the 7-foot-3 unicorn physically up to the task of reinstalling it?
Porziņģis told reporters that his issues are related to the ailment that cost him eight games after the All-Star break — what he called at the time “some viral illness we haven’t been able to fully identify yet.”
“For a week, [I was] really just laying at home, trying to recover,” he told reporters after returning to the lineup in a Celtics’ road win in Brooklyn on March 15. “And then after that, I still had lingering fatigue. And I still have it a little bit, but at least now I’m getting into, more or less, shape to be able to play. But yeah, after each workout, I was — boom, big crash. So, I was really, really fatigued. Not normal.”
Porziņģis played in 10 of Boston’s final 15 regular-season games after that mid-March return, averaging 21.2 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.5 blocks in 28.5 minutes per game on 51/41/80 shooting splits — production more or less in line with what he turned in as the floor-spacing, rim-protecting big man who helped the Celtics win it all last season. He struggled against the Magic in Round 1, though, scoring in double figures twice in five games while shooting just 45.9% on 2-point attempts and 2-for-17 (11.8%) beyond the 3-point arc. (Getting his head split open probably didn’t help.)
Kristaps Porziņģis has played only 27 minutes total through two games against the Knicks. (David Butler II-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
With the Knicks needing six games to vanquish the Pistons, the hope was that a little extra rest and recovery time would enable Porziņģis to get back to full strength by the start of a second-round series against the team that picked him fourth overall in the 2015 NBA draft, for whom he became an All-Star before suffering a devastating knee injury, and who traded him to Dallas in 2019. Those hopes have yet to be realized.
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Porziņģis opened the series continuing to struggle, missing four shots at the rim in the first quarter in an otherwise quiet opening to Game 1. Things got louder shortly thereafter, but the noise wasn’t positive: Porziņģis left the contest midway through the second quarter, with the Celtics announcing he was questionable to return with a non-COVID illness. He warmed up after halftime, but went back to the locker room; he wouldn’t check back in, missing the balance of a contest that saw New York erase a 20-point Celtics lead before winning in overtime to steal home-court advantage.
“Since he came back, I think he’s been kind of dealing with [the illness] on and off, fighting through it, working through it, doing the best he can,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said at the Celtics’ practice between Games 1 and 2. “I think it was just too much for him in [Game 1]. … He had been working through it since he’s gotten back and he’s done a great job of being available. It was just tough for him to continue, so we’ll see kind of how he handles that.”
Porziņģis’ condition improved enough that he was available for Game 2. Veteran big man Al Horford got the start, though, with the Latvian center coming off the bench for the first time since the 2024 Finals, and just the fifth time in 525 career NBA games.
After a quiet first half, Porziņģis offered a spark late in the third quarter, rolling to the rim for a dunk after setting a screen and hitting a late-clock stepback 3-pointer to push Boston’s lead to 20. He added an opportunistic offensive rebound and putback dunk of an airballed Jayson Tatum 3 early in the fourth quarter … but checked out for good at the 8:27 mark of the final frame, finishing with eight points and four rebounds in 14 minutes of work, during which Boston was outscored by nine points.
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“I’m dealing with some … I don’t know how to call it, but I’m just not feeling my best,” Porziņģis said after Game 2. “I’m not feeling my best at all. But it just kills me inside that it’s happening in this moment.”
The persistent illness continues what’s been a trying season for Porziņġis, who missed the opening month while recovering from offseason surgery to repair a torn retinaculum and dislocated posterior tibialis tendon in his left ankle — an injury he suffered during the 2024 NBA Finals. A Christmas Day injury to that same ankle cost Porziņġis a handful of games midseason; he didn’t play in both ends of a back-to-back set all season, and appeared in just 42 games, his fewest since 2020-21, when knee, ankle and back injuries plagued him in Dallas.
During the regular season, Boston’s attack didn’t skip a beat without Porziņġis. The Celtics went 30-12 with him in the lineup (.714 winning percentage, a 59-win pace) … and 31-9 with him out of it (.775 winning percentage, a 64-win pace). They were very good in Porziņģis’ minutes, outscoring opponents by 6.6 points-per-100, with an offensive rating that would’ve ranked seventh in the NBA and a defensive rating that would’ve ranked fifth. But they were elite with him off the floor — plus-11 points-per-100, scoring at league-best levels while still turning in a top-six defense, thanks to frontcourt stalwarts like Horford and the eminently useful Luke Kornet providing positive minutes in the middle flanked by the likes of Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard.
That elite offensive performance has not carried over against New York, though. Yes, the Celtics are dramatically underperforming their expected effective field goal percentage on 3-point attempts; they’re also shooting only 47.3% on 2-point shots and have produced just 14 points on 15 possessions finished out of the post, with Horford shooting 4-for-17 from the field while also struggling mightily to contain Karl-Anthony Towns in Game 2.
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In a series where the margins are so tight that the two teams are separated by just four points across two games, every point matters. Any foul-line turnaround over a switch, any deep seal in the paint on a rim-run in transition, any near-logo launch at the end of the shot clock could prove vital — especially if Boston’s perimeter stars continue to struggle to get their long-range shots online.
The Celtics’ best answer for getting back in this series is making more shots; their best answer for doing more of that might be generating easier ones. That’s what they brought Porziņģis to Boston to do, and it’s mostly worked. They can get back into this series without him … but him feeling better come Saturday afternoon sure would help.
“It’s not no injury or nothing,” Porziņģis said. “But I’m just not feeling my best, and it’s tough for me, honestly. But who cares? Nobody feels sorry for us, sorry for me, and we have to keep going.”
This news was originally published on this post .
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