Boston Celtics star Kristaps Porzingis exited Monday’s Game 4 against the Miami Heat before halftime after sustaining a non-contact calf injury. It could be a little while before he’s back in action for the Celtics.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Porzingis is expected to miss several games with a right soleus strain. The team announced Tuesday that the 28-year-old would miss Game 5 against the Heat, and it seems that he’ll be unavailable to start the second round, should Boston advance.
A win in Game 5 on Wednesday would secure the Celtics a spot in the Eastern Conference semifinals, where a matchup against the Orlando Magic or Cleveland Cavaliers would await. It’s not clear if Porzingis would be able to return in time for that series.
Porzingis’s injury is a similar one to the ailment which has kept Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo out of commission thus far into the playoffs. Antetokounmpo has not played since April 9, when he sustained the injury in a regular-season game against Boston.
Porzingis played 14 minutes on Monday before exiting with the calf injury. He logged seven points and three rebounds before departing. He’s averaging 12.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game in the first round against Miami, including his numbers from Game 4.
Neither team shot the ball particularly well in Game 2 of the 2024 NBA Finals, but it was the Boston Celtics who emerged victorious over the Dallas Mavericks, securing a 2–0 lead in the series following Sunday's 105–98 win.
Jrue Holiday led the charge offensively for the Celtics, proving particularly effective from in around the rim as he scored a team-high 26 points on 11 for 14 shooting. Jaylen Brown played prolific two-way ball once again, providing lockdown defense while also contributing his share on offense with 21 points.
Jayson Tatum's shooting woes continued, but as has often been the case during the postseason, Boston's depth was able to help overcome that. Tatum shot 6 for 22 from the field, but was an excellent facilitator as he racked up 12 assists and added nine rebounds.
Dallas didn't go down quietly though. The Mavs cut a 14-point deficit into just five with around one minute left, but an emphatic Derrick White block put a stopper on the comeback hopes and capped off the win for Boston.
Kristaps Porzingis, who made his return to the starting lineup on Sunday, exited during the fourth quarter after suffering an apparent leg injury. He remained in the game briefly before checking out for Al Horford and did not return. His status will be something to monitor going forward.
For the Mavericks, it often felt that if Luka Doncic wasn't scoring, the team's offense simply wasn't functioning. Doncic provided 32 of Dallas's 98 points, shooting 12 for 21 from the field despite not being at full strength. Although he registered a triple-double in just the second NBA Finals game of his career, he also had eight turnovers in the loss, struggling to take care of the ball against the stalwart Boston defense.
Apart from Doncic, the rest of the team shot 26 for 59 (44%), including a woeful 2 for 17 (11.7%) showing from three-point range. Kyrie Irving had another lackluster performance with 16 points and six assists, marking his second consecutive game without making a single three.
The series will shift to Dallas for Games 3 and 4, and the Mavericks will need to get the job done on Wednesday if they want to avoid the perilous 3–0 deficit, which no team has ever overcome in NBA history.
Halftime shows are like commercials. A necessary evil and a perfect opportunity to load up on more snack mix or perform a fluids check. Few people in the history of sitting on their couches have ever been deeply intrigued by a Coming Up At the Half tease. And the hardworking broadcasting crews that try to capture eyeballs and attention are fighting an uphill battle.
That's the bad news. The good is that all of this combines to create a low-stakes environment because, let's face it, average viewers don't really care if the halftime show is good or average or a trainwreck. As long as the second half begins on time then everyone wins and no one loses.
So it's kind of perplexing to see the aggregating of grievances concerning ESPN/ABC's mid-game fare during the NBA Finals. Awful Announcing got out the stopwatch and crunched some numbers following Game 1's halftime show.
All told, the studio crew got roughly a minute and 20 seconds of air time. And remember, that time was split between five people. Much of that time was spent on intros from and outros to commercial breaks.
Is this ideal? Certainly not. But is it a new phenomenon? Also no.
ESPN/ABC has been dinged for stuffing shot-clock-length opinions and observations between a crushing amount of bells and whistles for years. Those critiquing the operation are right when they say there's no flow and it can all be a bit disorienting. But they are also a bit silly for tuning into the Finals games and expecting anything different than what has been standard operating procedure for some time now.
It feels weird to defend something that could certainly be better yet at the same time complaining that viewers aren't getting enough opinions or analysis during what is essentially a content oasis feels a bit weird. Those are available on the network before the game and after the game, plus on-demand and on social media for anyone who may have missed the thousands of words and hundreds of segments devoted to Celtics-Mavs under the ESPN umbrella.
There simply cannot be a real world faction significant enough to warrant concern-trolling that Bob Myers and Josh Hart weren't given enough time to explore the space. Or that the real world is pining for another minute of Stephen A. Smith to fire off whatever he's going to fire off.
For as often this crew is compared to TNT's iconic foursome on Inside the NBA, which does move at a more beneficial pace, there's little apples-to-oranges consideration. First, broadcasting a champioship is going to afford the opportunity — and necessity really — to be more sponsor- and commercial-heavy. Then there's the problem of people conflating TNT's long postgame coverage with its halftime hits. Sure Barkley or O'Neal might say something hilarious and go viral during the mid-game break but more often than not the focus will be on Team X not turning the ball over or how Team Y looks sleepy out there.
Sunday night's Game 2 brought more of the same because, honestly, who would think it would change in the span of a few days. Unofficial numbers suggest the commercialization outpaced the analysis at around a 6-1 clip. But we're not going to go back and chart it ourselves because almost anything is a better use of time.
Something to keep in mind for Game 3 instead of hoping for a miracle that simply isn't going to come.
Kendrick Perkins wasn't thrilled with LeBron James's recent statement about former teammate Kyrie Irving ahead of the 2024 NBA Finals.
On his Mind the Game podcast with JJ Redick earlier this week, James said he is "so f------ mad" that he's not Irving's running mate anymore in the NBA.
“Here we go again,” Perkins said Thursday on ESPN. “Bron weaseling his way into somebody else’s moment … This is not about you! Your team is at home. This is about the Mavs and the Celtics, but yet you’re so mad and disappointed that you’re not Kyrie Irving’s running mate anymore. Here we go again.”
“Here we go again, [LeBron James] weaseling his way into somebody else’s moment… This is not about you! Your team is at home... You’re so mad & disappointed that you’re not Kyrie Irving’s running mate anymore."
Irving and James played three seasons together on the Cavaliers from 2014 to '17 and brought an NBA championship to Cleveland in 2016.
In 2017, Irving asked the Cavaliers for a trade, and he ended up in Boston for two years. When that didn't work out, Irving signed with the Brooklyn Nets in 2019 and later requested another trade in 2023, where he landed with the Mavericks.
Seven years after departing James in Cleveland, things have finally come together for Irving. He and backcourt mate Luka Doncic have proven to be the NBA's best scoring duo throughout the fifth-seeded Mavericks' run to the NBA Finals.
Irving and the Mavericks tip off the NBA Finals in Game 1 on Thursday night at TD Garden.