The New York Knicks pulled off one of the shocks of the NBA playoffs by erasing a 20-point lead on the road and winning Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinals matchup against the Boston Celtics on Monday night. The Knicks were buoyed by a strong offensive performance from OG Anunoby and some historically ice-cold outside shooting from the Celtics. They now have home-court advantage after losing all four regular season matchups to their Atlantic Division rivals.
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It was easy to forget as the Knicks made their furious second-half comeback, but a key reason they were able to get back into the game in the first place was the absence of Kristaps Porzingis, who left the game midway through the second quarter with an illness.
Draymond Green took some time out of his busy schedule to drop a new episode of his podcast this morning, despite the fact that he plays in Game 1 of the Golden State Warriors’ second round series tonight. He pointed to Porzingis’ potential absence as a major issue for the Celtics.
“Porzingis is a big key for that team, because he punishes switches really well. If he don’t come back, then this series gets really hard. If he comes back, I think the Celtics will be just fine. They can still be fine if he doesn’t come back, but Porzingis makes that team really go, like really take off.”
At 7-foot-2, there aren’t many players in the NBA, if any, that can do what Porzingis does. His outside shooting at a 41.2% clip combined with his ability to protect the rim allows the Celtics to reach another level. Until we know more, the Celtics will be legitimately worried about whether or not he’ll get back on the court.
Losing Kristaps Porzingis could short-circuit the Celtics’ title defense
As Draymond said, the Celtics might still be able to get past the Knicks even without their Latvian star, as despite bricking 45 threes in Game 1, they still only lost by three in overtime. Winning another title, however, will be a tougher task.
Porzingis missed eight straight games two months ago with an upper respiratory illness, so if that’s what he has again, we may not see him until the Eastern Conference Finals at the earliest. Celtics fans have to hope that by then it isn’t too late.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla didn’t seem to know Porzingis’ status when he spoke after Game 1, but he did emphasize how important he is to what the Celtics do. “We’ll check on him. But obviously it impacts the game with his ability on both ends of the floor. It obviously changes sub patterns, it changes what we’re able to do matchup-wise and play call frequency-wise,” Mazzulla said.
Porzingis and his availability will be the thing to watch heading into Game 2 on Wednesday as the Knicks try to take an improbable strangehold on the series. Whether he plays or not, it looks like this matchup isn’t going to be the cakewalk that Celtics fans expected.
