Celtics finish Heat without Kristaps Porziņģis as Boston’s ‘sixth starter’ answers the call

BOSTON – Before this season, Celtics star Jayson Tatum called a meeting of his “six holders“mostly to make sure everyone was okay with who would be left out of the starting five. Sixteen years into his NBA career, Al Horford accepted the backup role, knowing that his number 42 would still be called upon when needed.

And Horford is needed now more than ever as Kristaps Porziņģis has been diagnosed with a right soleus strain that cost the Celtics’ starting center Wednesday’s first-round victory over the Miami Heat.

“The way I approach things is about everything I can do to help our team win, put us in the best position and how I can impact a team with that,” Horford told Yahoo Sports. “And my mindset was simple. When this happened, I had to make a choice, and at the end of the day, I know what I can bring to a team and the things I can do. I just had to do it in a different way now and in a way I’m not used to.

“Ultimately, it was like, ‘I accept it, I stay the course and when my opportunities come… I’ll be ready for it.’ Throughout the season this happened, and now that it happened, I had to be ready to take a step forward.”

Wednesday’s 118-84 victory in Game 5 gives the Celtics some time to address the Porzingis situation. It’s a difficult injury to assess. If he returns too soon, Porzingis could put his Achilles tendon at risk. Recovery time lasts an average of 17 days, according to In Street Clothes, but more severe strains can extend this period to six weeks. That’s the difference between returning in time for the Conference Finals and possibly missing the NBA Finals.

“We’ll give it a week and see where he’s at,” second-year Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said of Porziņģis’ injury before the Game 5 win, “see how he responds to treatment next week. “

Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo suffered a soleus strain on April 9 and has not played since. Twenty-two days later, he is listed as doubtful for Thursday’s Game 6 against the Indiana Pacers.

Boston backup center Luke Kornet, who will also see more minutes in Porziņģis’ absence, just returned from a milder soleus injury a week from now. Porziņģis’ reaction to his tension did not to look light, although he posted on X (formerly Twitter) soon after: “Thanks for all the support, it’s going to be good.”

For sure sounds as if we hadn’t seen the last of Porziņģis.

“He really wants to be there,” said Jaylen Brown, Porziņģis’ riding partner, who scored a game-high 25 points in just 26 minutes of the final victory. “Just meeting him now, he’s smiling, but you can tell it hurts not to be with his team. But I just told him, ‘You know we’re going to hold on. , and we won’t miss anything when you get back, so we’ll be ready.”

Anyway, Horford and Kornet went to work on Wednesday, the big ones to a championship favorite, who will soon turn 38 years old and is an NBA player. They combined for 10 points (on 4-of-5 shooting), 13 rebounds and five assists in 41 minutes of yet another Heat loss. The Celtics hardly needed Porziņģis against weak Miami. They may not even need him in the second round against the Cleveland Cavaliers or Orlando Magic. Heck, they could make the conference finals without him.

“We still have tests ahead of us in these playoffs, especially now with KP out, but I think we are up to the challenge,” Brown said. “I’m excited about this. We’re graduatinging. We haven’t graduated yet.

Remember, Horford is no slouch. He is a five-time All-Star, even though his last appearance was six seasons ago. He started on a Celtics team that made the Finals just two years ago. LeBron James is the only active player who has played in more postseason games than Horford. So when Miami’s Bam Adebayo drove past Horford’s screen on the opening play of Game 5, trying to set the tone, it didn’t bother the veteran.

“My mindset is still the same,” said Horford, who recorded all three of his assists in Boston’s 41-point first quarter, burying the Heat. “I want to bring energy and make an impact on the game. I just think I’ll probably be put in position to sometimes make more offensive plays, and I think tonight we saw that. , and he’s kicking it to me, and I’m finding guys to throw it to. When I leave the bench, it’s usually in a different context, I’m more spaced out and things like that.

“One of the things that emerged this season was the possibility of winning games in different ways and with different teams,” added Mazzulla, who wants to play faster in Porziņģis’ absence. “Even when KP was healthy, we still played small, we did a lot of things, we played doubles, so you just have to develop a lot of different identities to be able to go into different playoff series, when you have different matchups, and we were able to do that. because of the guys’ attention to detail and their adherence to making the most sense, doing whatever it takes to win that specific game and having different identities.”

Wednesday marked Horford’s 75th playoff game with Tatum and Brown. (By comparison, Joe Ingles and Gary Harris are the only members of the Magic who entered this season with more than eight playoff games under their belt.) Their chemistry makes it easier for Boston to transition from one starting unit to another.

“It helped a lot,” Horford told Yahoo Sports. “We’ve had a lot of success here, and I’ve played since JB’s rookie year — and Jayson’s rookie year as well — so there’s a comfort level and trust with each other that we have. playing easy for them and trying to find ways to impact, and I feel like we just fed off each other. The work we do, it goes to show that we’re not trying to figure things out. together we have been doing this for many years and I feel like you can tell.

Horford is also the spiritual guide for these Celtics. Tatum and Brown called Horford “my favorite teammate I’ve ever had” and “one of the best off-court leaders in the NBA,” respectively. Midway through the second quarter on Wednesday, Horford grabbed back-to-back offensive rebounds, committed a foul and flexed in front of the Boston bench. The TD Garden crowd roared. The Celtics will rally around the veteran.

“Al sets the temperature for us with his ability to impact the game of basketball, but also with his personality and aggressiveness,” Mazzulla said. “He set the tone for us and everyone followed suit.”

But Porziņģis was always the component that opened another level to this team. The Celtics traded Marcus Smart, the heart and soul of five Eastern Conference finals appearances, for the 7-foot Latvian. Porziņģis can shoot anyone from anywhere. His verticality is both a deterrent to the defense and a benefit to Boston’s offense. That’s a dimension the Celtics haven’t had except in the second half of the 2021-22 regular season, when a healthy Robert Williams III also turned them into world champions.

And health has always been the issue. It’s the reason they traded Williams and the reason they were so careful with Porziņģis and Horford back-to-back all year. Porziņģis has Never has been fully healthy for a playoff run in his nine seasons. He tore his right meniscus in Game 1 of the 2020 playoffs and carried the knee pain until his first-round exit in 2021. It lasted until his fourth playoff game this season.

The Celtics are better with Porziņģis. There’s no doubt about that, even if they are now 22-4 without him. The starting lineup of Porziņģis, Tatum, Brown, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White outscored opponents by 12 points per 100 significant possessions during the regular season, rivaling the vaunted starters of the defending champion Denver Nuggets, according to Cleaning Glass. With Horford in place of Porziņģis, this five-man unit was +1.3 points per 100 non-garbage possessions, closer to Cleveland’s starting lineup.

Miami was no match for these Celtics without Porziņģis. The real tests begin now, as the Cavaliers or Magic’s size could create problems, and it only gets harder from there. #42 is ready for your call.

As Horford told Yahoo Sports, “I feel like I’m always ready to go.”