Kristaps Porzingis’ Celtics injury might open the door to a closer Eastern Conference title race
The Boston Celtics were comfortably the best team in NBA basketball during the regular season. After going up 3-1 on a shorthanded Miami Heat team in the first round, the Celtics should be glowing about being on the verge of advancing to the Eastern Conference Semifinals soon.
Instead, they’re holding their breath about center Kristaps Porzingis’s status.
During Game 4’s blowout win in Miami, Porzingis appeared to hurt his calf on a non-contact injury while handing the ball off to Jaylen Brown. It did not look good as the Boston center left the game to go to the locker room and didn’t return after playing just 14 minutes. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Porzingis will undergo further testing on Tuesday but that early indications are that he didn’t suffer an Achilles injury.
That said, it does not nearly mean Porzingis or the Celtics are out of the woods:
Kristaps Porzingis is heading to the Celtics locker room after suffering a non-contact injury to his leg.
Prayers up for KP
pic.twitter.com/pD13mwBKwH
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) April 30, 2024
Even if Porzingis avoided a disastrous season-ending injury, it does not seem like he’ll be back in the Boston lineup any time soon. If Porzingis is forced to miss any significant time, the Celtics are capable of winning and making a deep postseason run. Still, they are decidedly much more vulnerable without their starting big man, who was the team’s third-leading scorer, second-leading rebounder, and leader in blocks during the regular season.
You don’t just replace that kind of scoring, rebounding, and rim protection by playing hard and together with the players you still have available. These Celtics are more or less dependent on Porzingis taking pressure off of guys like Jayson Tatum, Brown, and Derrick White. He is too big of a piece to their title aspirations to simply wave off any possible extended absence.
All of this to say: Porzingis’ health status might open the door to a legitimate upset in the Eastern Conference title race, let alone the NBA championship.
Per oddsmakers with DraftKings, the Celtics are still heavily favored with -245 odds to win the East. Meanwhile, the tough No. 2-seeded New York Knicks come in second with +400 odds, while the young No. 6 seed Indiana Pacers have the third-best odds at +1100.
But those odds might not be accounting for Porzingis’ injury yet:
If I’m gonna be honest, I wouldn’t have entirely trusted the Celtics against a hard-nosed Knicks team, even with Porzingis in a potential Eastern Conference Finals matchup.
The Knicks are one of those teams that defends incredibly, has a real superstar in Jalen Brunson, and constantly makes all the little winning plays. (Shoutout to Josh Hart.) They already had the capacity to beat a full-strength Celtics team. If that feasible matchup happens without Porzingis (just about three weeks from now), I’d be very comfortable betting on the Knicks’ chances of pulling off the upset.
If you’re looking for a good longshot bet to upset these seemingly vulnerable Celtics, the Pacers might not be a bad idea. (Especially since they appear likely to play the Knicks in the second round.) Tyrese Haliburton has grown up before our eyes in his first postseason, while Pascal Siakam and Myles Turner give Indiana the requisite size to abuse a Boston team that could be without its starting center.
The Celtics are likely to advance to the second round of the NBA playoffs for the sixth time in the last seven seasons. But if they don’t have Porzingis moving forward, it’ll be much harder to count on their run through the Eastern Conference lasting as long as they hope.