It was known that Kristaps Porzingis was playing through injury during the NBA Finals and on June 27th 2024, he got offseason surgery to repair a torn retinaculum and dislocated posterior tibialis tendon. Porzingis has been listed out on the injury report for every game opening this season due to his rehabilitation from the surgery but today, the Celtics announced the next phase of his recovery.
The team announced Monday that Kristaps Porzingis and Xavier Tillman will be assigned to the Maine Celtics today for practice. Following the practice at the Auerbach Center, they will be recalled and Porzingis will start to ramp up his workload.
Injury Report update:
Kristaps Porzingis has reached the next phase in his recovery. As part of his rehab, Porzingis and Xavier Tillman will be assigned to the @MaineCeltics for practice.
Following practice, they will be recalled and Porzingis will ramp up his workload.
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 18, 2024
This is a great sign for the Celtics as even though there doesn’t seem to be a change from the December return time, Porzingis is back on the court and practicing again. The last time we have seen Kristaps Porzingis on the court was for Game 5 of the NBA Finals where he was playing through injury but was still able to come off the bench for 16 minutes to put up 5 points on 2-4 shooting.
Xavier Tillman is also joining this Maine Celtics practice with Porzingis today. It feels like since Tillman has been out of the rotation for Boston, he is there to likely just get some playing time in as well as giving Porzingis an NBA-caliber big man to play against in this practice.