BOSTON — Kristaps Porzingis has expressed his frustrations to start the season. First and foremost, he missed the opening month of the year due to surgery rehab from his rare foot injury from the NBA Finals. Then once he’s back on the court, he’s picked up minor injuries that’s kept him out of games.
On top of it all, his 3-point shot hasn’t been as efficient as in the past. But fortunately, that’s starting to change for the talented big man. After the Celtics beat the Pelicans on Sunday, Porzingis described what he does to break out of a slump.
“For myself, I don’t overreact,” Porzingis said. “I just keep the same routine. I look at realistically, is my wrist hurting, is it this, my feet? Just recalibrate everything and then having the same confidence as always shooting the ball. Can’t start having some overthinking moments and things like that. And that’s it. Honestly just keeping it simple. That’s how I do it.”
Porzingis has shot 14-for-34 (41.2%) over his last six games played, so that’s a positive sign. That’s compared to a 19-for-61 (31.1%) mark over his first 10 games of the year. Now, those realistically are small sample sizes over the court of a long season. But the makes are starting to come for Porzingis, who has stressed he wants to be more aggressive with his deep looks.
It’s clear Porzingis isn’t all the way back to his top form — recently, he said he was only at about 80-85% of the way back. That’s natural considering how much time he missed over the summer, plus the stop-and-start nature of his recent minor injuries.
But there have been games where he looks like the type of game-changing talent he can be. His Nuggets game was an indicator of that, where he took 18 shots but only three 3-pointers. He was aggressive and physical against an undermanned Nuggets team missing Nikola Jokic, playing well inside the arc on his way to 22 points that night.
The Celtics have also spoken at length about their preferred starting lineup and how they need to find that chemistry again from last season. That group includes Porzingis, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. C’s coach Joe Mazzulla described it as a training camp setting, where that five-man group just hasn’t played enough meaningful minutes yet this season compared to last year.
Porzingis, of course, is a huge factor when it comes to the team’s success. His two-way play unlocked an element to the C’s last season, and they’re still trying to find that high-efficiency play this year. Considering the Celtics are in a recent funk — they’re now 7-6 over their last 13 games — finding that mojo can go a long way to fixing some of their issues.
“The first game I came back against the Clippers (on Nov. 25), it felt pretty natural,” Porzingis said. “Boom, I was right in. But then, again, I’m out, I’m in, I’m out a little bit. Not playing my best basketball, not being as efficient. That adds up a little bit to the team. But now I look forward to having a good, long stretch of being healthy and getting in a good rhythm and us hitting our stride.”
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