Brad Stevens offers optimistic Celtics view on Kristaps Porzingis illness
BOSTON — While the Celtics fought to keep their season alive against the Knicks, it was clear they ran out of gas by the end of the East semifinals. They endured multiple injuries and other issues, including with Kristaps Porzingis as he was slowed down significantly during the series with an illness.
Boston president Brad Stevens spoke about Porzingis and the big man's illness at his end-of-season media availability Monday. He offered up an optimistic view where resting up should help Porzingis get over the illness. Stevens added Porzingis' issues came 'out of the blue' as he wasn't 100% against New York.
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'In the middle of a playoff series where you play every other day, it's not an ideal situation in terms of feeling better — especially with the travel and everything else and the amount of physical force these guys put on their bodies,' Stevens said. 'Our expectation is that it'll probably be the next couple weeks will do him good to be off. He's going to play for Latvia. I think that's a good thing. I think it's good to be playing in EuroBasket and I'm sure it'll be well-cleared up by then.'
Porzingis battled the illness that kept him out for eight games during the regular season, mainly in March. While he had played well and looked more like himself ahead of the playoffs, the aftereffects were present during the second round. Stevens said he was optimistic when it came to Porzingis to end the regular season, including a huge 34-point game against the Knicks on the road April 8.
But by the second round, Porzingis couldn't impact the game to help the Celtics to victories. He averaged just 4.2 points and 3.7 rebounds in 15.5 minutes throughout the six-game series, shooting 24.0% from the field. As the Celtics also dealt with injuries to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, it was a tough blow at the worst time of the year.
Porzingis will rest up now that the Celtics' season is over. It's unclear if this will be an issue going forward, but not playing in playoff basketball games should help him recover and get past his illness. The C's enter a summer of uncertainty as they will have to shake up their roster, but that'll be dealt with at a later time.
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'I don't think anybody was more frustrated than him,' Stevens said. 'I felt for him because the way it was described to me, it was just post-viral syndrome, which is just lingering effects of a long illness. I think we've seen that and probably all read too much about that over the last several years. But I think that, unfortunately, I thought he had really turned a corner there towards the end of the regular season.'
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