**BOSTON —** After a whirlwind postseason run, Brad Stevens just shared some insight into what Boston Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis went through down the stretch of the year while dealing with a brutal illness.
“Yeah, no, I don't think anybody was more frustrated than him,” Stevens said. “And I felt for him because the way it was described to me was just post-viral syndrome, which is just lingering effects of a long illness. And I think we've seen that and probably all read too much about that over the last several years.
“But I think that, unfortunately, I thought he had really turned the corner there towards the end of the regular season. We went to Madison Square Garden, \[and\] he was so good, and then even in the first round. And then, for whatever reason, he just didn't feel as good there early in the next series, and never really felt great.”
Stevens also noted that there wasn’t much time for Porzingis to get some much-needed time off in the middle of the postseason.
“Now, in the middle of a playoff series where you play every other day, it's not an ideal situation to feeling better, especially with the travel and everything else, and the amount of physical force these guys put on their bodies,” he said. “So, our expectation is that, probably, these next couple of weeks will do him good to be off.”
**Kristaps Porzingis will play for Latvia in EuroBasket**
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Though he didn’t end the year well in Boston, Porzingis still plans on playing for Latvia in EuroBasket, which runs from August 27 to September 14. Stevens sees this as a positive.
“He's going to play for Latvia. I think that's a good thing,” said Stevens. “I mean, it's good to be playing in EuroBasket, and I'm sure it'll be well cleared up by then.”
**Kristaps Porzingis' end-of-season disaster and uncertain future**
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Porzingis’ illness hit him at the tail end of February and bled into March, forcing him to miss eight straight games. It picked up again “just out of the blue,” according to Stevens, in the early stages of the playoffs.
The big man struggled his way through the playoffs, especially in the New York Knicks series. “He couldn’t breathe,” Joe Mazzulla said after Game 5, as Porzingis did not play in the second half.
Now, with the Celtics facing some tough offseason decisions regarding the cap and the CBA, Porzingis’ monster contract [could be a casualty](https://hardwoodhoudini.com/boston-celtics-kristaps-porzingis-turned-into-offseason-nightmare-brooklyn-nets) of offseason moves made in an attempt to get below the second apron.