BOSTON — As soon as Jaylen Brown split between defenders Kris Dunn and James Harden, Kristaps Porziņģis pointed his finger toward the TD Garden rafters and took off running for the basket. The gesture was unmistakable. Porziņģis, in his regular-season debut Monday night, wanted his alley-oop partner to throw one high above the rim.
Brown didn’t initially let on that he saw the connection unfolding, but only because he wanted to fool the defense.
“They was pressuring me up the court as a ballhandler, and as soon as I broke the line of the defense, that’s when I knew I was going to have KP,” Brown said after the Boston Celtics’ 126-94 victory. “They wasn’t going to let me just get straight to the basket. I knew I would have KP, so I just put it up there for him and let him do the rest.”
After taking one step inside the paint, Brown rose on one leg to loft a pass high over the outstretched arms of Ivica Zubac. Brown craned his neck to watch Porziņģis slam home the big dunk, then wagged his tongue afterward to celebrate the return of his favorite assist target.
“‘Cookies and Cream’ is back,” said Brown, citing a nickname the duo adopted last season. “Let’s get it.”
COOKIES & CREAM 🍪🥛 pic.twitter.com/37Bk186vDQ
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 26, 2024
After missing the first 17 games of the regular season while recovering from offseason ankle surgery, Porziņģis is back. As well as the Celtics played while going 14-3 without him, they believe he completes them. Jayson Tatum recently called the big man Boston’s cheat code. Porziņģis can certainly look like one at times. Even when at less than his best, as he was Monday, he unlocks different styles of play for the Celtics.
The LA Clippers began the game by playing drop coverage against Porziņģis. He had no problem creating wide-open 3-point attempts simply by popping to the arc. When LA eventually switched the pick-and-rolls, Porziņģis posted up the team’s wings and drew a couple of shooting fouls against them. None of the other Celtics big men even try to post up, but Porziņģis is one of the league’s most efficient forces on the low block, especially against switches. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said that ability “changes the frequency of the game.”
“The Clippers do a great job changing matchups and coverages on the fly, and we were able to read that throughout the game and kind of get the shot that we wanted,” Mazzulla said. “But to have that post presence to where you can get different looks is important for us.”
Porziņģis’ outside looks didn’t fall early. After his third miss in three minutes, he slapped his hands together and smiled sheepishly. Given all of the open shots afforded to him by the Clippers’ drop coverage, Porziņģis could not believe he had started his regular-season debut by making just one of his first four field goal attempts. In a matchup like the one against Zubac, he said the points pile up easily for him because of how simply he can produce open perimeter looks.
“That kind of matchup for me, it’s like, these guys, it’s just like one pick-and-roll and I’m wide open to shoot a 3,” Porziņģis said. “Didn’t knock them down tonight.”
Porziņģis finished with 16 points on 6-for-12 shooting but hit just one of his six 3-point attempts. His teammates didn’t care about his outside misses. They loved seeing Porziņģis back on the court with them. They felt his presence, his calming touch. The way nothing ever seems to faze him. He even left his stamp on his walk out to the court. Adding to the theater of his return, Porziņģis did not run out of the locker room for pregame warmups at the same time as his teammates. Instead, he made his way to the court several minutes later. The JumboTron showed Porziņģis, with a coffee cup in his right hand, approaching the Celtics tunnel through a back hallway. Upon reaching the court, Porziņģis pointed up toward the crowd with a smile, put down the cup and strolled over to fire up his first practice shot from well beyond the 3-point arc.
He stepped onto the parquet floor in his own way, with that classic Porziņģis cool.
“The walkout was incredible,” Payton Pritchard said. “That energized us.”
Brown called Porziņģis a legend.
“Did you see his walkout?” Brown said. “That’s just him. So, he definitely brings that swagger to our team and that energy, and it was great to have him back out there.”
KP with our first bucket obviously 😏 pic.twitter.com/YBh7Cf8tGe
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 26, 2024
Boston rolled in his return. Against the fifth-ranked Clippers defense, the Celtics scored 51 points in the second quarter alone while tying an NBA record with 12 3-point makes in a single quarter. For those 12 minutes, the Boston offense tested the limits of production. It recorded assists on 14 of its 17 made field goals in the quarter. While shooting 17-for-25 from the field, including 12 of 17 from behind the arc, they piled up more made 3-pointers than the Clippers did made field goals. It was the Celtics franchise’s highest-scoring quarter since 1970 and the third highest in franchise history. Pritchard said “the flow was incredible” during that stretch.
Not all of it came with Porziņģis on the court. Not everything clicked with him in the lineup, but the Celtics didn’t expect a seamless reintegration for him. Mazzulla said he expects an adjustment period while the team figures out the different types of coverages opponents will play against them.
For as much attention is paid to Porziņģis’ offense, the Celtics seemed more excited about the defensive impact he will make. Their rim protection suffered during his absence. They dropped from third to 12th at preventing shots inside of 4 feet while also allowing teams to shoot much better on the layup attempts they did produce. Overall, their defensive efficiency dipped from second place to 10th — still good, just not elite like all of the recent Boston teams.
Mazzulla smiled when asked about how Porziņģis’ return would change the defense, especially the rim protection.
“We had 11 blocks tonight,” Mazzulla said. “Yeah, it helps.”
Porziņģis had two of those, including a big one late in the second quarter. As Dunn spun to the baseline, Porziņģis rotated over to meet the Clippers guard at the rim. With his hands straight up, Porziņģis swallowed the dunk attempt and forced a shot clock violation.
He said he felt good physically in his return but also pointed out that he caught flat tires on his two alley-oop finishes. He laughed about how he barely got above the rim to convert a pass from Pritchard. Porziņģis shrugged off the lack of air he got on that bucket, calling it “part of the process, especially (in the) first game back.”
“It’s normal,” Porziņģis said.
Porziņģis played just 22 minutes but said he does not expect many limitations. That’s a sign of how confident he and the team feel in his body.
When Porziņģis last suited up, in the Game 5 NBA Finals clincher, he knew he would need surgery to correct his rare ankle injury after the season. Despite needing five months to return to game action, he called the recovery process “one of my easiest rehabs.” After a tough four-to-six-week period immediately after the surgery, during which he needed to stay off the ankle entirely (he moved around on a scooter), he said, “It honestly felt pretty natural.”
The Celtics sounded optimistic about the big man’s recovery throughout the process. At media day, Brad Stevens called the team “very, very pleased” with Porziņģis’ progress. Before games, the 7-foot-2 center could regularly be seen working out on the court, often with one of the team’s coaches defending him. Porziņģis took the next step in his rehab last week when he practiced with the Maine Celtics at the Auerbach Center. Around that time, Mazzulla learned Porziņģis would target Monday’s meeting with the Clippers for his return.
He easily beat the initial timeline.
“I would say the whole rehab was — I was ahead of it all the time,” Porziņģis said. “I was itching to do more, start more. Sprints, this, this, contact, one-on-one, so I was always asking the medical staff to do more. But I was still smart, and we completed all the stages to get to this point, and I told them, ‘If you guys give me the green light and I can start playing, I want to do it as soon as possible.’ So, yeah, that was it. And I got here maybe even a month early, and it’s good to be back out there.”
The Celtics didn’t feel whole without Porziņģis. They have proved they can win without him but believe they’re far more powerful with him.
“It was a pleasure to have him (on the court),” Brown said. “His energy, his presence, was fantastic. We just gotta keep building as a team. Last year is over with. It’s a new year. It’s good to have that swagger, but we gotta keep our humility at the same time and treat every opponent with respect and just take care of business.”
(Photo: Brian Fluharty / Getty Images)
