Is KP playing? New team, familiar story for Celtics’ Kristaps Porzingis prior to Game 3

Like old times, 7-foot-2 center Kristaps Porzingis was back Tuesday in American Airlines Center. Like old times, injury news has cast doubt on whether he’ll actually play Wednesday in American Airlines Center.

New team, familiar storyline, but vastly heightened circumstances: Porzingis now plays for Boston, but a rare lower left leg injury has rendered him questionable to play against his former team, Dallas, in Wednesday’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Crass though it sounds, it might be the turn of events the Mavericks need as they face an 0-2 series deficit from which only five teams in 36 attempts have rallied to win the championship.

Mavericks fans well understand the frustration of Celtics counterparts. Dallas knows the Porzingis Experience well, having watched him play 134 of a potential 209 games from 2019 to 2022, prompting the perpetual question: Is KP playing?

“It’s kind of a random situation,” Porzingis said Tuesday. “I felt something, and now I have to deal with it. … Obviously I’m going to do everything I can to be out there tomorrow.”

The Celtics say Porzingis suffered a torn medial retinaculum during their seven-point Game 2 victory Sunday night in Boston. That tear allowed dislocation of Porzingis’ posterior tibialis tendon.

If Porzingis is unable to play Game 3, or perhaps multiple games, it won’t be an unfamiliar feeling for Boston. He missed 25 regular-season games and 10 more in the postseason (with a calf injury), with the Celtics going 9-1 in playoff games without him.

And if Porzingis does play Wednesday, or perhaps Friday’s Game 4? It would mark the first time he’s played in American Airlines Center since Dallas traded him to Washington on Feb. 10, 2022. Since then, his Wizards and Celtics teams have played here once apiece and he didn’t play in either case.

“Some black magic, no?” Porzingis joked Tuesday.

That he’s yet to play in AAC since his departure raises the question of how fans will respond if he does in fact play.

Will he be booed? Given the raised stakes and pressure and atmosphere of the NBA Finals, yes, he almost certainly will and probably should be booed — strictly in the spirit of competition, not because of anything Porzingis did or said during his three seasons here.

Would he be booed if this was the regular season? Probably very little, if at all.

Porzingis on Tuesday recalled his first visit as a Washington Wizard, on Jan. 24, 2023, when he sat on the bench in street clothes and mostly received warm applause when the Mavericks played a tribute video on the center video screen.

“Very unexpected for me, but that was very nice,” Porzingis said. “I think the organization, the people on the inside, appreciated my time here, and that was very nice.

“Obviously, I have completely no bad feeling about this place. I love this city, love the fans, and it just didn’t work out. I definitely don’t expect a [crowd reaction] like I had in New York. But we’ll see tomorrow.”

When asked whether he would be surprised if he’s booed in AAC, he nodded.

“I would be,” he said. “But who knows? It’s the Finals. They might boo me just because they want to affect me.”

After getting traded from New York to Dallas, Porzingis was booed each time he played in Madison Square Garden, the acrimony lingering from critical comments he made about the Knicks franchise during his time there.

It’s doubtful that if Porzingis does play Wednesday and/or Friday that he’ll be booed as loudly or thoroughly as Mavericks guard and ex-Celtic Kyrie Irving every time he touched the ball during Games 1 and 2 in TD Garden.

Irving, after leaving Boston for Brooklyn, memorably stomped on TD Garden midcourt Lucky the Leprechaun logo and made an obscene gesture toward heckling fans, so it’s understandable that Celtics fans hold grudges. Irving himself has said his actions lacked maturity and that he’s learned from them.

Irving being cast in Beantown as a villain makes sense; Porzingis in Big D is nothing of that sort Big D.

Porzingis’ greatest “sin” here was not being available for enough games, and in reality many of the times he sat out were franchise decisions out of an abundance of caution as he returned from a knee ligament tear that he suffered as a Knick.

He also never developed the closeness with Luka Doncic that fans, reporters and the Mavericks franchise itself expected would be the case, based largely on the fact that both players are European. In hindsight that was a silly basis for that expectation.

Look at Irving, 31, and Doncic, 25. They have little in common personally, but their on-court chemistry is clear. How many times this season have we seen the star pair walk off the court arm-in-arm, or pat one another on the back or simply smile or laugh toward one another?

Porzingis and Doncic were more distant personally. It didn’t necessarily show in their play together on the court, but it was telling that fans and reporters resorted to counting the number of times they fist-bumped.

Former Maverick Chandler Parsons said before the series on FanDuel TV’s “Run It Back” that “They do not like Porzingis in Dallas” and that Doncic and Porzingis had “actual beef,” prompting an incredulous response from Doncic when asked by a reporter.

“I’ve talked to Chandler Parsons maybe twice in my life, so I don’t know how he would know that. But me and KP have a good relationship. I don’t know why people would say otherwise.”

Doncic and Porzingis consistently have summed up the Donic-Porzingis era thusly: “It just didn’t work out.”

Now, though, the Mavericks and many of their fans probably see irony in the fact that when Boston most needs him, Porzingis might not be available to play.

Mavericks fans no doubt recall Dallas’ 2020 first-round playoff series against the Clippers in the Orlando bubble, when Porzingis sustained a knee sprain and missed the last three games. It was a contact injury, knee-on-knee, unavoidable and not Porzingis’ fault. But it added to his legacy of missing games.

Before this series, when many wondered whether Porzingis would be at full strength while returning from a calf injury to play for the first time in a month, he was adamant that he would play, adding “I’d die out there” to play.

Reminded Tuesday of that comment, he laughed.

“Yeah, I’m living by those words,” he said. “Of course.”

Literally?

“I mean, I hope not,” he said, again laughing. “But if it comes to that to win, yes.”

Twitter: @townbrad

Photos: Mavericks and Celtics practice in preparation for Game 3 of the NBA Finals in Dallas

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