DENVER — In the Ball Arena visitor’s locker room late Tuesday night, a Celtics employee walked over to set up a chair alongside one wall. Other players typically stand throughout their interviews, unless they have been summoned to the podium, but Kristaps Porziņģis likes to sit down while he answers questions from the media. As the 7-foot-2 center approached from the other side of the locker room, holding a Gatorade in one hand, the team staffer set up the area just the way Porziņģis likes it.
The chair was just a small symbol of how Porziņģis’ presence forces change. For the Celtics, who have needed to adjust significantly since he made his season debut in late November, maybe it shouldn’t be seen as such a surprise that this stretch has produced some of their most inconsistent basketball all season. After missing the first 17 games of the season and dealing with various injuries afterward, which have forced him in and out of the lineup since his return, Porziņģis has emphasized the need to play himself back into top condition. Following Tuesday night’s 118-106 win against the Nuggets, he said it was one of the first times this season he felt like himself again.
“I know this is what everybody expects from me, this is what I showed last season, and now I’m just working my way back up,” Porziņģis said. “Honestly, tonight was in my opinion one of the first games that I felt like I’m getting close to feeling healthy, feeling good and getting back in good shape.”
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On the possession that started a game-sealing Celtics run, they almost walked away empty twice. Jaylen Brown nearly committed a turnover on a cross-court pass to the corner. After retrieving the loose ball, Jrue Holiday missed a lefty floater from inside the paint. Then Porziņģis snuck behind the Nuggets defense for a putback dunk that put his team ahead.
On the next Boston possession, the big man worked for great post-up position on the low block, forced the Denver defense to send help and found Holiday for a clutch 3-pointer. Three minutes later, lit by Porziņģis’s spark, the Celtics concluded a 15-0 flurry that broke a fourth-quarter tie. In what Joe Mazzulla called the big man’s most physical outing of the season, Porziņģis finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds, two steals, one block and the belief that he’s beginning to round into shape after a frustrating start to the campaign. He said he’s currently operating at about 80 to 85 percent of his normal capacity.
“So I still have a little bit to go,” Porziņģis said. “Shot needs to calibrate a little bit better. I haven’t been shooting the ball well this season, so there’s definitely things I can improve. But I know that moment is coming when everything will start clicking and I’ll play really high-level basketball.”
The Celtics should be eager to see that version of Porziņģis again. With the center at less than his best, they haven’t always looked good with him on the court. Even if he had come back at 100 percent, they would have needed to readjust to his presence because they play such a different style when he’s available. After largely living up to their lofty preseason expectations during Porziņģis’s early-season absence, the Celtics have run into bumps while trying to reincorporate the center. None of their other big men command post-up touches; he’s one of the NBA’s best low-post players. Because of how uniquely gifted he is, defenses change how they guard the Celtics when he’s on the court. Mazzulla recently said the team has needed to adapt to all the coverages teams around the league have dialed up.
“It’s not necessarily that we’re changing (with him on the court),” Mazzulla said recently, “but I think we have to know what teams are doing constantly.”
The numbers highlight how much the adjustment has tested the Celtics. Many of the team’s lulls recently have come with Porziņģis available and in the lineup. Since his season debut on Nov. 25, the team has outscored opponents by just 3.1 points per 100 possessions with him on the court while dominating by 15.7 points per 100 possessions without him. Since his initial return, the Celtics have gone 5-1 when he’s missed games and 8-6 with him available. The two most lopsided wins during that stretch, a 54-point victory against the Raptors and a 37-point victory against the Pacers, came with Porziņģis sidelined by a sprained ankle.
The Celtics starting lineup, a great strength last season, has lacked cohesion during limited playing time. Over 103 minutes, the Boston starters have been outscored by 29 points with a hideous offensive rating of 105.8 and net rating of minus-11.3. Even over a tiny sample size, that type of performance is not what one would expect from a first unit loaded with star power. It underlines how well the Celtics’ normal rhythm has hidden itself at times lately. With just seven games of a healthy starting lineup so far, Mazzulla suggested his team is still working through some issues that most groups address before the regular season even begins.
“I think when you look at the rhythm and the reps that we’ve gotten, we’re kind of almost at the beginning of training camp with the starting five as to what the reps look like, and you can’t underestimate how that impacts each other,” Mazzulla said. “Not positively or negatively, it’s just, it does. It impacts matchups, it impacts coverages, it impacts rhythm. Hopefully, we have that for a long period of time so we can work through the habits and the things that are necessary. Just building the habits, the rhythm and the trust of how to play off each other, how to play with each other, how to respect each other’s space.”
Jayson Tatum, like Mazzulla, brought up the need to do a better job recognizing defensive coverages. The Celtics usually thrive on finding the right matchup quickly and taking advantage of it, but they believe they have been too slow recently to diagnose defensive strategies. At their best, Mazzulla said they do it quickly and do it together.
This season, it might be even more important to do so. Mazzulla believes the evolution of the NBA has led to more shape-shifting from defenses across the league. He said teams used to do it mostly out of a quarter or timeout, but now change on the fly. He called it “another way to kind of speed the game up, force you in different types of rotations.” Against an offense as dangerous as Boston’s, teams likely feel more of a need to disguise what they’re doing.
“I think with obviously the talent that we have, it’s a way to make us stop and think for a second,” Mazzulla said. “So we have to find a balance of playing quick, playing fast regardless of those at times and then just get better at diagnosing that. I think it’s just a different way to attack us.”
Porziņģis has also seen the changes from opponents.
“It’s been in a way more chaotic how they defend us,” Porziņģis said. “Also a lot more swiping, a lot more physicality and different matchups and this, and just trying to throw us off, and do all kinds of stuff to try to mix it up against us. So we’re a pretty experienced team, but we’re also adjusting because maybe the refereeing is changing a little bit, so now, OK, they’re allowing more (of) this, so we have to also take advantage of that. So we’re also just being on the go and adjusting. But talent, we have that. It’s just a matter of time of us clicking again and going on a nice run.”
Though Mazzulla considered the Celtics’ 3-1 road trip a successful one, the one loss was jarring. Boston scored just 27 second-half points while falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday. At shootaround on Tuesday morning, the Celtics broke down the meltdown. Porziņģis said the tape looked just like he thought it would with bad execution, rampant turnovers, silly shot selection and stupid mistakes. Though he called it “just an ugly, ugly offensive second half,” Porziņģis sounded grateful such a performance came against the Thunder, who have lapped the rest of the league in defensive efficiency this season. The big man said Boston could have gotten away with some of its errors against a lesser opponent. Oklahoma City, which hasn’t lost an official game since Dec. 1, exposed the Celtics’ lapses.
“It’s good that we got it against a strong team, this kind of a second half,” Porziņģis said. “And it makes us I think look at what we’re doing not just last game but recently where we’ve been lacking. So I think that was necessary.”
The Celtics have gone through more than one such humbling recently. Before starting the road trip, they gathered for what Porziņģis called a “looking-in-the-mirror type of meeting.” That followed an 8-6 December that compelled Mazzulla to call out his team’s inconsistency. For this group, which barely ran into any adversity en route to a championship last season, the sustained stretch of mediocrity counted as a new experience.
Despite the win against Denver, which played without Nikola Jokić (illness), the Celtics are still fighting to find their best again. Porziņģis believes it could come soon.
“I don’t think we were excellent (on the road trip),” Porziņģis said, “but I think we’re getting (close). I think we’re going to turn the corner and go on a nice run. I really believe so.”
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(Photo of Kristaps Porziņģis and Denver’s Christian Braun: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
