DALLAS — Immediately after Boston's win in Game 2 of the 2024 NBA Finals, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said he wasn't concerned about the leg injury center Kristaps Porzingis appeared to suffer in the second half of the 105-98 win.
“No, he's excellent,” Mazzulla said.
In fact, the same could be said for Porzingis, who played just 3:26 in the fourth quarter of Game 2 before being taken out for good with 4:40 remaining.
“I feel fine,” he said. “Yeah, I don't think it's a big deal.”
So… about that:
The breaking news, released just after the Celtics began media availability at the American Airlines Center on Tuesday, was enough to send sports fans and reporters searching for a medical school speed run where they could become familiar with the ins and outs of the medial retinaculum. (The first step in that process? Learning that there is more than one medial retinaculum.)
“He suffered a torn medial retinaculum and a dislocated posterior tibial tendon,” a Celtics news release said. [Porziņģis’] That the “left leg” is a “rare injury” is backed up by the fact that Jeff Stotts, athletic trainer and injury specialist at Inn Street Close, says there is “only one real injury.” [comparison]Because there was a breach in his vast database.
“When the retinaculum ruptures, the tendon can become dislocated (dislocated), causing pain and instability in the ankle and foot,” Stotts wrote Tuesday. “…It will be interesting to see how this is managed, but [Porzingis’] If there is a history of injury, there is reason to be concerned.”
But it's unclear how significant the concerns are. Asked if it's a pain tolerance issue or if playing on his leg puts him at risk for a worse, more serious injury, Porzingis said, “That's a good question. I don't know.”
At least for now, the Celtics have not decided to hold him out for Game 3 – a 7-foot-2 walking mismatch, a floor-spacing center who can unleash a brutal five-and-out offense and an inside intimidator who can slam shots that turn the paint into a no-fly zone. Instead, they have listed him as questionable for Game 3, with his status changing from day to day.
“Yeah, I mean, he's doing everything he can to be ready for tomorrow's game. This is a serious injury,” Mazzulla said Tuesday. “At the end of the day, our team and our medical team aren't going to put him in a bad situation. We've made the decision in his hands to play.” [of] His importance.
“He's going to do his best to play. We're going to leave that to the medical team. That's it, really.”
Porzingis missed the end of the first-round series against the Heat and all of the second and third rounds against the Cavaliers and Pacers with a right calf injury. Really He doesn't like the idea of missing Game 3, which isn't all that surprising given his bombastic public declaration after Game 2 that he was willing to die on the court to win an NBA championship. (“Yeah, I definitely live up to that statement,” he insisted on Tuesday.) But a collision late in the third quarter on Sunday night left him with little say in the matter.
“Yeah, I was at the free throw line going for the rebound,” Porzingis said, as he walked to the podium Tuesday without a limp or any discomfort, wearing a black sleeve and brace on his left ankle. “I just shoved it in.” [Mavericks center Dereck] Lively came back, we bumped knees, something happened, and we kept playing for a while after that.”
But his play after that wasn't particularly great, as the ABC crew pointed out multiple times, most notably in his inability to win fourth-quarter contests with Kyrie Irving and Daniel Gafford.
“Obviously, it affected my movement a little bit late in the game. Joe took me out,” Porzingis said. He said he's been undergoing “a lot of treatments throughout the day” to be healthy enough to play Wednesday. “…It's kind of a fortuitous situation. I felt something and now I've got to deal with it.”
So are the Celtics. Is there a sliver of light in these gray clouds? In the 35 games that Porzingis has missed this season, the Celtics are 30-5. In the regular season and playoffs combined, the Celtics have outscored opponents by 11.8 points per 100 possessions when he's not on the court, according to PBP Stats. Not only are the Celtics getting used to playing without him, but they've been great at doing so so far.
“It's the same as always,” Celtics star Jaylen Brown said of the team's response to Porzingis' inconsistency. “KP's been great for us, not just in the playoffs, but all season long. Obviously having him on the floor takes us to another level, but we've always prided ourselves on having a next-guy mentality. We prepare for these moments so we can play with or without anybody. We just need someone to step up and everyone to work together to win as a team.”
But just as Boston has proven adept at getting those contributions, and as effective as the Celtics were in the Eastern Conference playoffs without Porzingis, winning nine of 10 games in the third round as he recovered from a soleus injury, there's no arguing that the Celtics' best version of themselves will only be evident when he's on the court.
“You're a lot stronger when you have him. A 7-foot-4 unicorn, you know that?” Celtics star Jayson Tatum said. “He's a supreme talent. Offensively, he creates a lot of matchup problems. And defensively, he's a guy who can impact the shot and protect the rim just as well.”
The impact is evident in the numbers for this series. In the 44 minutes Porzingis played in the series, the Celtics outscored the Mavericks by 26 points, a staggering plus-27.7 net rating. But what about the 52 minutes he was off the court? Dallas held its own against Boston, scoring 104.8 points per 100 possessions.
If that doesn't seem like much… well, it's because it isn't. Their 104.8 offensive rating was last in the NBA during the regular season and 13th out of 16 teams in the postseason, just ahead of the Cavaliers and Heat, both of which had to play the Celtics, per the related article.
When the Mavs realized they had a narrow victory 90.4 But the per 100 points scored with the 7-foot-2 Latvian big man on the court starts to seem like a pretty big number when you consider that Luka Doncic, assessing Dallas' woes, said Tuesday that the team's “main issue right now” is “not scoring a lot.”
And perhaps this would be a pretty big opportunity for a Dallas side that is in desperate need of both a foothold to stabilize on in this Finals and a launch pad to get back into the series.
“Basketball is about success and failure and how you capitalize on your mistakes,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said Tuesday. “We just didn't have the opportunities to capitalize on them.”
Porzinis' absence will be an opportunity for Dallas to take advantage on a number of fronts.
Without him, Boston loses the weapon of forcing smaller defenders to switch on him in two-man plays, allowing for a nail-biting post-up attack that looks like a pop-a-shot on a well-meaning toddler.
Porzingis' absence negates Boston's most lethal pick-and-pop threat, a 30-foot floor spacer whose quick release opens up lanes for the downhill drives that Tatum and Brown used to repeatedly beat Dallas in Games 1 and 2, and punishes defenses that stray a little too far in trying to close off those lanes.
It will also increase the responsibility of Al Horford, who just turned 38. The 17-year veteran proved he can still perform at a high level when playing major minutes, averaging 10.7 points and 7.3 rebounds in 32 minutes per game in the 10 games Porzingis missed early in the playoffs, including a stellar 22-point, 15-rebound, 5-assist performance in a blowout win over Cleveland.
…Then in Game 3 against the Pacers, he scored 23 points and made seven 3-pointers.
But asking Horford to play extended stretches of the late 30 or early 40 minutes could lead to diminishing returns. Defensively, especially, any slippage in Boston's pick-and-roll coverage could give Dallas renewed energy to attempt more 3-pointers from the corners, more alley-oop dunks from centers Lively and Gafford and, perhaps most importantly, more opportunities for Irving to regain the shooting touch he lost in the two games with Boston.
“I'm more fundamental, I'm more technical with my shots. I don't get in the paint with three or four guys around me, I don't pass the ball,” Irving said Tuesday. “They send me special plays to make it difficult for me.”
But how effective would those strategies be if, instead of Horford and Porzingis guarding the backline for 48 minutes, it was Horford and backup big men Luke Kornet and Oshae Brissett, who only saw the court in garbage time in Game 1 this series, or Xavier Tillman Sr., who hasn't seen the court at all?
“Whoever we play, I know they might not be as good as KP, but they're going to do whatever it takes to win games,” Celtics guard Derrick White said. “Whoever we play, I have as much confidence in them as I do in KP.”
The Celtics are all adamant that they're comfortable with a Plan B if that happens, but with them being two wins away from a championship, it would certainly be nice if they could stick with Plan A.
“For me, like I said before, there's nothing stopping me unless they tell me I can't play,” Porzingis said. “That's the only reason I'm not there. … There's still some time. We'll see how my status is tomorrow.”
