The Boston Celtics took the Dallas Mavericks to the woodshed, and for Game 1 of the 2024 NBA Finals, Kristaps Porzingis gave the whooping.
Porzingis, the former Knicks first-round pick traded to the Mavericks and then the Washington Wizards before ultimately landing in Boston last summer, came off the bench on Thursday to mark his first game back after 38 days sidelined with a right calf injury.
He scored 20 points in 21 minutes on 8-of-13 shooting from the field and hit his former team with an 11-point flurry in the opening period to create a 17-point first-quarter lead that ballooned as large as 29 in Boston’s eventual 107-89 victory.
The Celtics started Al Horford against the Mavericks on Thursday but went to Porzingis at the 7:17 mark in the first quarter. They outscored the Mavericks, 25-9, after the substitution, blowing Game 1 wide-open by seeking Porzingis cross-matches, where the 7-foot stretch five had an edge shooting over Dallas’ smaller defenders in the first half.
It’s an edge the Celtics wouldn’t have had if they didn’t have the guts to make a difficult offseason move, a move the likes of which the Knicks will ultimately be faced with this summer.
After all, it’s no secret the Knicks will have to improve the roster if they one day soon want to be where the Celtics are, and the Leon Rose-led front office at Madison Square Garden has the assets to pull off a deal capable of lifting the Knicks to new heights.
PORZINGIS TRADE IS PERFECT EXAMPLE
It took perfect market conditions for the Celtics to come away with what now looks like the heist of the century, yet another Boston sports masterclass.
After all, Porzingis’ value was at an all-time low. Good players on rebuilding teams tend to become available at a discount.
But it cost the Celtics’ their heart and soul, a key home-grown talent in Marcus Smart who’d literally given his blood, sweat and tears for an organization he’d helped to the NBA Finals in 2022.
Smart’s value skyrocketed after he claimed Defensive Player of the Year, becoming the first guard since Gary Payton in 1996, the second since Michael Jordan in 1988 and just the fifth guard in NBA history to win an award dominated by forwards and big men.
The Celtics traded Smart to the Memphis Grizzlies and Danilo Gallinari, Mike Muscala and the No. 35 pick of the 2023 NBA Draft to the Wizards last summer.
In exchange for sending Smart to Memphis, the Grizzlies gave up starting-caliber point guard Tyus Jones, the No. 25 pick in 2023, and the Golden State Warriors’ first-round pick (No. 14) in the upcoming 2024 NBA Draft.
The Celtics kept the picks and sent Jones to the Wizards to acquire Porzingis.
They later sent the No. 25 pick to the Detroit Pistons for a pair of future second-round picks and the Warriors’ pick to the Portland Trail Blazers to acquire Smart’s replacement, Jrue Holiday, who helped hold Kyrie Irving to just 6-of-19 shooting for 12 points in Game 1.
The Celtics are no strangers to making tough moves they feel will elevate them to championship heights — and they are no strangers when it comes to fluctuating market conditions on star players.
They took advantage of one such swing in August 2017, when they traded Isaiah Thomas — who played hurt in the playoffs — even though he’d secured back-to-back All-Star appearances and earned Second Team All-NBA honors, for a younger Irving, who demanded a trade away from LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers despite winning a title together in 2016.
Boston did it again last summer, trading Smart to the Grizzlies after he earned Defensive Player of the Year honors and averaged a career-high 6.3 assists on one of the better three-point shooting seasons of his Celtics career.
These are the kinds of deals deft general managers execute: devoid of emotion, stuffed with basketball genius, the kinds of deals the Knicks made in-season only to go south due to injury.
Pairing Porzingis with Horford allowed the Celtics to play five-out virtually all season long, and it’s a puzzle NBA teams will scramble to solve either through personnel or defensive scheme this offseason.
And acquiring OG Anunoby gave the Knicks not only a bona fide defensive stopper, but also more balance and space on the offensive end. The Alec Burks-Bojan Bogdanovic acquisitions were successful, too, but Bogdanovic’s season-ending first-round ankle injury came at a poor time for a Knicks team already struggling with injuries on the season.
IRVING’S BOSTON STRUGGLES CONTINUE
After averaging 27 points on 49% shooting from the field to eliminate the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games in the Western Conference Finals, Kyrie Irving laid an egg in Game 1 in Boston, missing 13 of his 19 shots and carelessly turning the ball over three times in a blowout loss.
Irving shot 16-of-43 over his three previous playoff games against the Celtics with the Brooklyn Nets and shot 9-of-23 from the field and 1-of-7 from deep in Dallas’ March 1 matchup against the Celtics.
NIGHTMARE DEFENSIVE MATCHUP FOR MAVS
Luka Doncic also struggled from the field, reaching his typical 30-point mark but on 12-of-26 shooting from the field. He also generated just one assist to his four turnovers on the night, often struggling under the defensive pressure applied by Boston’s $304 million man, Jaylen Brown.
Between Holiday, Brown, Derrick White and Jayson Tatum, the Celtics have four players who can switch one through four who are all capable of stints defending both Irving and Doncic.
P.J. Washington’s 14 points were the second-most scored by any Mavericks player, and second-year guard Jaden Hardy’s 13 points in 11 minutes of mostly garbage time may have earned him an opportunity in Game 2, especially if Irving continues to struggle in Boston.