The Boston Celtics were eliminated from the postseason last night, falling to the New York Knicks. For the seventh straight season, the NBA will not have a repeat champion, showing the massive amount of parity that the league is building.
Despite entering the series with New York as heavy favorites, the Celtics just couldn't get out of their own way. Even before star forward Jayson Tatum unfortunately tore his Achilles, the Celtics had dug themselves into a tough series deficit.
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But, one of the bigger storylines from this series was the health of star center Kristaps Porzingis. Porzingis was in and out of the lineup for the Celtics during the entire series due to a strange illness that he was dealing with.
The Celtics' big man had dealt with an illness during the regular season, so it seemed that it lingered with him. It clearly impacted Porzingis while on the court, and he simply couldn't provide Boston with the production that the team needed.
After Game 6, Porzingis addressed the illness, admitting that he wasn't even sure he knew what it was.
"I'm not sure... even right now, I played 11 minutes and I'm gassed. I could just lay down right here and take a little nap, easy."
The only game that Porzingis played more than 20 minutes was in Game 4. Otherwise, he was very limited on the court, and the Celtics missed his production.
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Porzingis was naturally frustrated that he couldn't help the team, discussing this after the game was over.
"Super super frustrating. As frustrating as you can imagine. Just to not be able to help this team more. Especially with JT going out, just not being too much of a help just hurts deep inside.", he said.
All in all, it was a tough series for the Celtics, and they failed in the quest to repeat. Many people are expecting a lot of changes to come to Boston this offseason, so the Celtics could look very different come next season.
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This story was originally published May 17, 2025 at 10:20 AM.