DALLAS – In the moments 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 that center Kristaps Porziņģis appeared to suffer in the second half of the win 105-98.
“No, he’s good,” said Mazzulla.
That includes Porziņģis, who played just three minutes and 26 seconds in the fourth quarter of Game 2 before checking out for good with 4:40 to go.
“A good feeling,” he said. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s anything serious.”
So… about that:
All it took was a late press release, dropped just as the Celtics opened their media slate Tuesday at the American Airlines Center, to send sports fans and reporters alike looking for a medical speedrun that could make them experts on the field of medicine. the ins and outs of the medial retinaculum. (First step in the process? Learning that there is more than one.)
The Celtics’ press release claims that the “torn medial retinaculum, causing dislocation of the posterior tibalis tendon in [Porziņģis’] left leg” is a “rare injury” is supported by the fact that athletic trainer and injury expert Jeff Stotts of In Street Clothes says he “only has one real injury.” [comparison]for the crack in his extensive database.
“If the retrinaculum is torn, the tendon can dislocate (dislocate), causing pain and instability of the ankle and foot,” Stotts wrote on Tuesday. “…It will be interesting to see how this is managed, but given [Porzingis’] injury history, there is cause for concern.”
However, the extent of the concern remains unclear. When asked if it’s more of a pain tolerance issue or if playing on the leg puts you at risk of a worse, more serious injury, Porziņģis said: “Good question. Don’t know.”
For now, at least, the Celtics haven’t ruled on their 7-foot running mismatch — the center on the floor that unlocks their relentless five-out offense, the shot-swatting interior intimidator that turns the paint into a no-fly zone — out for Game 3. Instead, they listed him as questionable for Game 3 and called his status an everyday proposition.
“Yeah, I mean, listen, he’s doing everything he can to be ready for tomorrow’s game. It is a serious injury,” Mazzulla said on Tuesday. “At the end of the day, our team and the medical team are not going to put him in bad situations. We made the decision to play out of his hands because [of] his importance.
“He’s going to do everything he can to play. We’ll leave it to our medical team. That’s it really.”
After missing the end of the Celtics’ first round against the Heat and all of the second and third rounds against the Cavaliers and Pacers with a right calf strain, Porziņģis Real doesn’t like the idea of missing Game 3; this isn’t exactly a surprise, considering the hyperbolic public declaration after Game 2 of his willingness to die on the court in pursuit of the NBA championship. (“Yes, of course I live by those words,” he insisted Tuesday.) But a collision late in the third quarter on Sunday night has left him with little say in the matter.
“Yes, I went for a rebound at the free-throw line,” said Porziņģis, who wore a black sleeve and brace over his left ankle Tuesday as he walked to and from the podium — without apparent limp or discomfort. “Just kind of pushed inward [Mavericks center Dereck] Lively’s back, and we bumped knees, and something happened. After that I kept playing for a while.”
However, he didn’t look particularly good afterward – something the ABC broadcast crew noted repeatedly, and which was exposed by his inability to win fourth-quarter foot races with Kyrie Irving or Daniel Gafford:
“Obviously my movement was affected a little bit towards the end. Joe took me,” said Porziņģis, who said he underwent “a lot of treatments, all day long” to try to get healthy enough to play on Wednesday. “… It’s kind of a random situation. I felt something, and now I have to deal with it.
And that goes for the Celtics too. The silver lining to this particular gray cloud? In the 35 games Porziņģis has missed this season, the Celtics are 30-5. According to PBP Stats, they have outscored their opponents by a combined 11.8 points per 100 possessions during the regular season and playoffs. Not only do they have experience playing without him; they have been excellent at it so far.
“Same old, same old,” Celtics star Jaylen Brown said of the team’s handling of Porziņģis’ uncertain status. “KP has been great for our group, not just in the playoffs, but all season long. It’s clear: Him on the floor just helps take us to another level. But we are proud of our next-man-up mentality. We prepare for these moments, to be able to play with or without someone. It just takes someone else on our team to step up and everyone needs to pitch in to achieve a complete team victory.”
But as adept as Boston has proven to be at getting those contributions — and as effective as the Celtics were in the Eastern Conference playoffs without Porziņģis, posting nine wins in 10 games over three rounds while recovering from soleus -tribe – there is no doubt about it. that the best version of the Celtics only reveals itself when he’s on the court.
“We’re just a much better team when we have him – a 7-foot unicorn, right?” said Celtics star Jayson Tatum. “He’s as talented as they come. Presents so many matchup problems on the offensive side. On the defensive end, someone who can influence shots protects the rim as well as he does.
That impact is reflected in the figures in this series. The Celtics have defeated the Mavericks by 26 points in the 44 minutes Porziņģis has played in this series – an eye-popping net score of plus 27.7. But in the 52 minutes he has been off the field? Dallas has even played Boston and scored 104.8 points per 100 possessions.
If that doesn’t sound like a lot of points… well, that’s because it doesn’t. An offensive rating of 104.8 would have ranked 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 whom, in a related story, faced the Celtics to play. .
When you realize the Mavs have collected a measly 90.4 points per 100 with the seven-foot-tall Latvian big man on the floor — and that none other an arbiter of Dallas’ plight than Luka Dončić said Tuesday that the team’s “main problem right now” is that “we’ t really not score” – it’s starting to seem like a pretty big number.
And perhaps a pretty big opportunity for a Dallas squad in desperate need of both something to steady itself in these Finals and a launching pad to rocket back into the series.
“I think the game of basketball is about making and missing and capitalizing on mistakes,” Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd said Tuesday. “We just haven’t had the opportunity to capitalize.”
Sidelining Porziņģis would be an opportunity for Dallas to benefit in a number of ways.
Without him, Boston loses the weapon to force smaller defenders to switch to him in the two-man game, opening up the nail post-ups that amounted to him playing Pop-a-Shot over well-meaning toddlers:
No Porziņģis also takes away Boston’s most lethal pick-and-pop threat: the 30-foot floor spacer whose presence widens the lanes for the downhill runs with which Tatum and Brown repeatedly pounded Dallas in Games 1 and 2, and whose quick trigger- release punishes the defense for straying a little too far to try to close down those lanes.
It also puts more responsibility on the plate of the just 38-year-old Al Horford. The 17-year veteran has proven that he is still capable of performing at a high level in big minutes, averaging 10.7 points and 7.3 rebounds in 32 minutes per game during Porziņģis’ 10 games previously missed in the postseason – including a huge 22-point, 15-rebound, 5-assist performance in the closeout win over Cleveland…
…and a 23-point, seven-3-point outing in Game 3 against the Pacers:
However, asking Horford to log heavy minutes — in the high 30s or perhaps low 40s — could lead to diminishing returns. Especially on the defensive end, where any slippage in Boston’s pick-and-roll coverage could breathe new life into Dallas, as it looks like the crowbar opens up more 3-point attempts in the corner, more alley-oops dunks for centers Lively and Gafford, and — perhaps most crucially — more openings for Irving to shift the shot-making touch that failed him through two games in Boston.
“I can be a lot more fundamentally sound and technical in my shots, and not get into the paint a lot when there’s three or four guys around me, I’m not passing,” Irving said Tuesday. “They send specific strategies against me to make it difficult.”
However, how effective can these strategies be when instead of 48 minutes of Horford and Porziņģ patrolling the backline, it’s Horford and reserve bigs Luke Kornet or Oshae Brissett, who in this series have only seen the field in the garbage time of Game 1? Or Xavier Tillman Sr., who didn’t see it at all?
“Whoever we put in there, we understand they may not be what KP is, but they’ll do whatever it takes to help us win games,” Celtics guard Derrick White said. “I have as much confidence in who we deploy there as I do in KP.”
The Celtics insist they are comfortable with Plan B if push comes to shove. But still two wins away from a ring, it sure would be nice to be able to stick to Plan A.
“For my part, as I said, nothing will stop me unless I am told not to play,” Porziņģis said. “That’s the only reason I wouldn’t be there. … You know, we still have some time. We’ll see how I do tomorrow.”
