Kristaps Porziņģis found a home – and a ring – in Boston by continuing to embrace change

BOSTON – He meant what he said.

“I had to live by the words I said in the interview (on the podium): I would die for this team to win,” Kristaps Porziņģis said quietly – well, he is pretty calm most of the time – in a small room somewhere in the bowels. from TD Garden early Tuesday morning. He had a smile on his face. But every step he took hurt. He wasn’t wearing shoes. He only wore compression socks. But it hurt less to walk around the garden in your socks. It was the price of being part of an NBA championship team.

Porziņģis therefore lost 16 minutes during the decisive fifth game of the Boston Celtics, Monday evening, against the Dallas Mavericks. He played with a torn medial retinaculum in his left leg, an injury he suffered in Game 2 of the NBA Finals that kept him out of Games 3 and 4 in Dallas. The retinaculum passes from the quadriceps to the tibia and helps stabilize your kneecap. The tear suffered by Porziņģis caused his posterior tibial tendon to dislocate. It’s a rare injury in sports, but it’s real.

Porziņģis was far from himself. But he made a few baskets, made a few fouls, changed a few shots at the rim and grabbed a rebound. It wasn’t much, but it helped.

The wound, he said Athleticism early Tuesday morning, surgery will be required. But with this version of the Celtics desperate to raise an 18th banner to the rafters and end the franchise’s 16-year drought since its last title in 2008, Porziņģis was ready to destroy whatever offseason plans he had previously.

“If we didn’t do it, it would be a big disappointment, 100 percent,” he said. Athleticism. “But that’s the risk I wanted to take, and it paid off.” … I’m going to need surgery, obviously, now, in the offseason. But hey, all I wanted to do was give everything I could to the team. The medical staff did everything they could to get me out. And it paid off. »

So there was Porziņģis, stopping to do every interview, whether in English, Spanish or his native Latvian. He hugged everyone, including his teammate, Sam Hauser.

“How many people think I’m your brother?” “It’s insane,” Hauser said in disbelief, because even though Porziņģis is very close to his two older brothers, one of whom is one of his agents, neither of them has become a solid player for the legendary Celtics nor lost a few 3s in a decisive game for the finals.

Everything about the last year of Porziņģis’ life forced him out of his comfort zone and into this moment.

He gave up money to come to Boston. A potential free agent last summer, he could have stayed on a Washington Wizards team that likely would have featured him this season, for a lot more cheddar — a likely four-year, $180 million extension, the most that the The team could have offered, if he opted for the final year of his existing contract. At least a Wizards team under previous constraints had it constantly trying to make the playoffs, even though it was light years away from being a contender. When Wizards Governor Ted Leonsis fired former team president Tommy Sheppard after last season and tapped Clippers general manager Michael Winger and Thunder assistant general manager Will Dawkins to lead the team, he gave them the opportunity to tear everything down and start again. They accepted it.

Still, Porziņģis could have stayed in Washington on a less-than-maximum deal. He could have piled on the empty calories of big stats racked up by the best player on a mediocre team, perhaps earning All-Star consideration. At 22.9 points and 8.5 rebounds per game during his 82-game stint in just under a season and a half in Washington, he could have continued to be comfortable. But he wanted to get more out of his career.

He had already lived through the Unicorn era in New York, when he burst onto the scene as the Knicks’ highest pick (fourth overall, 2015) since Patrick Ewing and made his only All-Star appearance. He had tried to find common ground with Luka Dončić in Dallas, with some success, but not enough. And there was nothing close to a winning path with the Wizards. So he arranged a sign-and-trade with Boston, which landed him a two-year, $60 million deal through 2026.

And it cost the Celtics Marcus Smart, who had been the heart and soul of the team for nine seasons, the nerve and nastiness behind the offensive skills of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. But Smart was 29 last summer, and he was only going to get more expensive going forward, and Boston was very committed to Brown and Tatum going forward. Additionally, the 7-foot-2 Porziņģis was someone the Celtics had been looking for for some time. He addressed a pressing need in the Celtics’ half-court offense: what to do against defenses that have done everything they can to overwhelm Boston’s preferred method of raining 3s on the opposition.

Porziņģis could also shoot from deep. But he made the Celtics lethal all over the court. He shot a career-best 60.6 percent on 2-pointers this season, increasing the Celtics’ team 2-point percentage from 56.7 last season to 57.5 this season. These marginal improvements have helped Boston become the best offense in the NBA this season, and one of the best of all time, blowtorching opposing defenses night after night. Porziņģis’ improvement in Washington’s half-court, where he also became an elite rim protector in legitimate starting minutes, made him a perfect fit for Boston.

No one in the league has a better offensive third option than Porziņģis, who has averaged 20 per game this season, moving into the endless space created by Boston’s offense all season and attacking the mismatches created by the Celtics’ incessant ball movement, screening (or ghost screening) and spacing.

And Porziņģis quickly became a crowd favorite. The TD Garden crowd roared in Game 1 of the Finals when he returned from a calf injury that kept him out for most of the first three rounds of the playoffs. On Monday, they went crazy when the arena scoreboard showed Porziņģis arriving on the court before tipoff, after spending all day getting ice, stims and all sorts of treatments to get him back on track. field.