By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
After finishing the 2023-24 NBA Season on top as Champions, the Boston Celtics couldn’t get to this year’s Eastern Conference Finals, losing 4-2 to the New York Knicks.
One of the reasons why Joe Mazzulla’s team couldn’t deliver in beating the rivals was Kristaps Porzingis not being at his best conditions for all these Playoffs.
After the end of Game 6, the Latvian big man shared his frustration about the illness that forced him to disappointing performances.
“Super frustrating, as frustrating as you can imagine. Just not being able to help this team more, not being too much of a help, it hurts deep inside here. It really sucks. In these moments, what can we do? I tried to give what I had, but I just fell short,” he shared.
During the NBA Playoffs, Porzingis just averaged 21.9 minutes per game over 10 appearances, scoring a career-low 8.1 points with 4.6 rebounds per game.
“My system is not perfect right now, it’s not working the way it should be. Many weird things, the best thing I need right now might be rest, get somewhere in the sun, and let my system heaven out.”
“It’s a very frustrating time for me, I’m gonna need some time to recover from this,” Kristaps Porzingis also said. “The doctors are trying to help as much as possible, but it was just some lingering fatigue. I played 11 minutes, but I’m gassed. I could just lie down over here and take a little nap, which is extremely weird. [I had] many symptoms that were super weird.”
Asked about some clarity over his condition, he couldn’t answer clearly. “I think nobody has a clear answer. I’ll see how I go from here. Maybe I do some extra testing, and see if we find something, but if not, maybe just a reset for my whole system, and hopefully that will get my energy levels back up.”
Getting eliminated from contention, Boston suffered a 38-point loss against the Knicks. “Extremely tough night for us, it felt like nothing goes going our way and the game was easy for them,” he shared.
“Many things were not clicking for us, from the beginning they created a lead, we didn’t really have any good moments in the game to get back there. It was a tough way to end on this note.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images