Kristaps Porzingis is one of the most unique players the game has ever seen. Unfortunately, that applies to everything about him, including how he misses time.
He didn’t just go down with an ankle injury in the playoffs, he suffered one of the rarest ankle injuries in NBA history. When he got sick a couple of weeks ago, he didn’t just get the flu. He got an unidentified virus that made him sicker than he’s ever been.
“It was extremely, extremely frustrating,” Porzingis said after leading the Celtics to a narrow win over the Nets. “I think it was some sort of upper respiratory thing that turned into something heavier.”
Porzingis said they tested for everything, ruling out things like mononucleosis, before settling on the assumption that it was probably a form of bronchitis. Whatever it was, it cost him nine of his last 10 games, and he might as well not have played that one game in Detroit.
“I was really, like, for a week, just laying at home trying to recover,” he said. “After that I still had lingering fatigue. … After each workout I was, boom, big crash. I was really, really fatigued. Like, not normal.”
His ability to go through the workouts was why he was listed as “questionable” so often, but the post-workout crashes kept leading to downgrades. Porzingis was as frustrated as anyone, feeling good enough to try, but never getting past that point.
“I was trying to push for the Lakers game,” Porzingis said. Before that game, he had posted a reply to an Instagram post saying he was, indeed, playing. “I tried to push my body the day before. I had a hard workout, but then the crash I had was, like, historical. The next day, I couldn't even get out of bed for shoot-around.
“Then I went to the arena, I tried to get some shots up while I was just so fatigued, I was like ‘I’m not going to be a help. I’m gonna hurt the team if I push myself.’”
The lingering illness frustrated him as much as it did the fans. Those fans started to get louder by the day on social media, so in the midst of his recovery, Porzingis decided to tweet out his own update.
I have been dealing with some viral illness that we haven't been able to fully identify yet. I am recovering and getting better. But still working my way back to full strenght to help this team. Thanks for support and Im hoping for a healthy return soon. 🙏💚 pic.twitter.com/3HdJvdYRG3
— Kristaps Porzingis (@kporzee) March 11, 2025
“It was frustrating for me. I’m like, ‘Illness-out, illness-out.’ Like, c’mon, this guy can’t play through some illness?” he said. “Even I would think that. I just wanted to let people know that I was really dealing with something, and I would never sit out for some, I don’t know, cough or something.”
Whatever worse-than-a-cough thing he was dealing with finally seemed to break as the team landed in Miami. He was more himself in the pre-game shoot-around and on the sideline. It’s entirely possible he could have returned in that game, but with the Celtics staggering him and Al Horford on back-to-backs, an extra day of rest made sense.
And the plan worked out pretty well. His 24 points against the Nets was his fourth-best scoring output of the season and his 56.3% shooting was his seventh-best efficiency, despite a rough 1-7 night from deep.
“At first, I felt a little out of rhythm,” he said. “The first few shots were a bit bricky. But as the game went on, I felt better and better.”
The proof of that lies in his 14-point fourth quarter where he shot 4-6 from the field and 5-5 from the line. He compiled those numbers playing the entire fourth quarter, which was a surprise to just about everyone, including Porzingis.
“I thought it was gonna play like 20 minutes,” Porzingis said afterward. “But Joe told me, like, mid-fourth. He was like, 'I'm not gonna take you out. So, just bite down and let's go.' I said, ‘Okay, let's go.’ Got some sugar in my system, and just pushed through.”
Porzingis is going to have to push through a lot over the next month to get ready for the playoffs. His return is just in time for a proper ramp-up to have him, hopefully, ready to play about 25-30 minutes a night as the Celtics chase another title. If the loss to the OKC Thunder showed anything, it’s that this year’s run will be tougher.
“I know he’s been really sick and dealing with the illness, so for him to get back and get his rhythm back is good for us,” Payton Pritchard said. “Especially at this stretch before the playoffs to get his legs under him.”
It’s probably a good thing the Celtics have some time off after this game. Getting one’s legs back isn’t going to happen in one shot, no matter how good he looked in his first game back. The good thing is he has time to recover and to keep building on what, hopefully, is his last return from absence for a while.
“No crazy fatigue yet. I’m hoping that's it,” he said. “Even if there is some tomorrow, I’ll do all my red ight and all the rest of the stuff I know helps me. And we have two days now until the next one, so, perfect.”