A frustrating postseason for Kristaps Porzingis came to an end Friday night at Madison Square Garden.
The Boston Celtics big man tallied just four points on 1 for 4 shooting in his team’s Game 6 blowout loss to the New York Knicks, providing a brief spark with a 3-pointer and a blocked shot but logging just 11 minutes and 30 seconds of court time.
Porzingis only played 20-plus minutes in one of Boston’s last six games while battling the lingering effects of an upper respiratory illness that caused him to miss eight straight games in late February and early March.
After torching the Knicks during the regular season, Porzingis was a shell of himself in this series, finishing with 25 total points over six games (4.2 per game) while shooting 6 for 25 (24 percent) from the floor and 2 for 9 (22.2 percent) from 3-point range.
Following Boston’s season-ending loss at Madison Square Garden, Porzingis spoke at length about the health issues he’s battled for several weeks.
“I always try to downplay it in my own mind, like, ‘I’m good, I’m good, I’m good,'” Porzingis said about managing his illness. “But I don’t know, my system is not perfect right now, not working the way it should be. Many, many weird things. Might be the best thing I need right now is just to rest, just get somewhere in the sun and just let my system kind of even itself out.
“But it’s definitely a very, very frustrating time for me.”
While it was clear how the illness impacted Porzingis — he struggled with his breathing throughout the series and tired very easily — the big man said he still doesn’t know what type of illness he has.
“I’m not sure,” Porzingis said. “The doctors are trying to help as much as possible, but it was just some lingering fatigue, some effects. And even right now — I played 11 minutes, but I’m gassed right now. Like, I could just lay down over here and just take a little nap, easy, which is extremely weird, and many symptoms that were super weird.
“So, I think nobody has a clear answer. I’ll see how I go from here; maybe I do some extra testing, some extra stuff and see if we find something, but if not, maybe just a reset to my whole system, and hopefully that will get my energy levels back up.”
While the mystery surrounding Porzingis’ illness is obviously concerning, the big man confirmed he got approval from team doctors to play in each game of this series, and that he wasn’t risking further complications by taking the court.
“I got the approval from the doctors that they don’t believe anything serious can happen,” Porzingis said. “They tested my heart and everything, then it was just a matter of, how much can I give? I tried to give what I had, but it wasn’t much, as you could see.”
“But, yeah there’s no bigger risk, so I was able to play.”
Porzingis’ future with the Celtics is murky; he’ll enter the final year of his contract in 2025-26 at a $30.7 million salary. The 7-foot-3 big man is a two-way spark plug and matchup nightmare for opponents when healthy, but if Boston is looking for ways to get under the luxury tax to avoid repeater penalties, it’s possible the team could explore trading Porzingis and end his two-year tenure in Boston.
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