NEW YORK — When the Celtics’ season ended Friday night, Kristaps Porzingis still had not shaken the viral illness that depleted his energy and his talents throughout the Eastern Conference semifinals.
And worse yet, he still didn’t even know exactly what the illness was.
“Even right now, I played 11 minutes, but I’m gassed right now,” the Boston big man said after his team’s 119-81 elimination loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. “I could just lay down over here and take a little nap, easy. It was just extremely weird, and many symptoms that were super weird. I think nobody has a clear answer. I’ll see how I go from here.”
Porzingis was able to play in all 11 of the Celtics’ playoff games, but his minutes were severely restricted, and he looked like a shell of his usual highly impactful self when he was on the court. He averaged just 15.5 minutes per game in the second-round series against the Knicks, coming off the bench in four of the six contests.
His limitations hurt the Celtics at both ends of the court as Boston blew leads of 20, 20 and 14 points in three of its losses to New York. Porzingis did not see the floor after halftime in Games 1, 5 and 6.
“Super, super frustrating,” he said. “As frustrating as you can imagine. Just to not be able to help this team more, especially with (Jayson Tatum) going out. Not being too much of a help just hurts deep inside of here. It really sucks. It really, really sucks in these moments. But what can we do? I tried to give what I had, and we just fell short.”
Porzingis finished his postseason ranked last among all NBA players with at least 50 field-goal attempts in field-goal percentage, effective field-goal percentage and true shooting percentage. His 15.4% 3-point percentage was the worst of anyone who took at least 15 threes.
Despite Porzingis’ struggles and fatigue, including what he described as energy “crashes,” head coach Joe Mazzulla continued to play him as part of a frontcourt rotation with Al Horford and Luke Kornet. Porzingis said sitting out was not a consideration because his doctors, though unclear on his exact diagnosis, didn’t believe playing would make his condition worse.
“No, when I got the approval from the doctors, they don’t believe anything serious can happen,” he said. “They tested my heart, everything. Then it was just a matter of me, how much I can give. And yeah, I tried to give what I had. It wasn’t much, as you could see. But yeah, there was no bigger risk, so I was able to play.”
Porzingis hopes to gain more clarity about his illness this offseason, though he does not believe it is a long-term concern. After taking time to rest, he intends to play for his native Latvia in the EuroBasket 2025 tournament, which begins in late August, and hopes to use that as a springboard for a stronger start to the 2025-26 season. (He had to spend last offseason rehabbing following lower leg surgery and didn’t debut until late November.)
“I always try to downplay it in my own mind that ‘I’m good, I’m good,’ but I don’t know,” Porzingis said. “My system just is not perfect right now. It’s not working the way it should be. Many, many weird things. And it 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 up. But it definitely was a very, very frustrating time for me, and nothing much else to add, really. It’s going to be now for me at least some time to recover from this.”
Whether Porzingis still will be with Boston next season remains to be seen, as significant Celtics roster changes could be coming this summer. He has one year and $30.7 million remaining on his contract.
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