Kristaps Porzingis injury: Three ways Mavericks can take advantage of big man’s potential NBA Finals absence

News broke on Tuesday that Kristaps Porzingis suffered a “torn medial retinaculum, allowing dislocation of the posterior tibialis tendon” in his left leg during Game 2 and is considered “day-to-day” moving forward. 

That’s a lot of medical jargon, and the link above tells you what you need to know about what is apparently an extremely rare injury, but for the purposes of this post, we’re going to keep it to basketball. 

Porzingis might well play in Game 3. He says he’s doing everything he can to get on the floor and that he’ll “die out there.” But in the event that Porzingis doesn’t play in Game 3 — which is a must-win for the Mavs as no team in history has recovered from a 3-0 deficit to win an NBA playoff series, let alone the Finals — here are three ways his absence could be the break Dallas needs to get back in this series. 

1. Rim protection

Porzingis is a different rim-protecting animal that Al Horford. For starters, he’s five inches taller at 7-foot-2 and that makes a big difference as a deterrent. Porzingis has already blocked five shots in this series and altered more than that. This one on Josh Green in the open floor was ridiculous.

Here’s another fantastic block in transition on Daniel Gafford, and again, the good news is this play came after Porzingis came up lame with the calf injury and was able to stay in the game. 

That Porzingis stayed in the game for six more minutes after the injury and was able to make plays like this (he also stayed with Luka Doncic on a baseline drive and held up against a dancing Kyrie Irving in space) is an encouraging sign that the injury might not be as bad as Boston’s worst fears. 

But if it is, or even if he just needs a game off, Boston will miss his rim protection mightily. In the Finals, the Mavericks are converting just 36.4% of their shots at the rim against Porzingis (4 for 11), by far the stingiest mark of any single defender in the series. 

2. Shooting

Porzingis has only made two 3-pointers in the series and didn’t make any in Game 2, but the threat of his…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kristaps-porzingis-injury-three-ways-mavericks-can-take-advantage-of-big-mans-potential-nba-finals-absence/

Author : Brad Botkin

Publish date : 2024-06-12 13:13:30

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