BOSTON — Luke Kornet disappeared shortly before tip-off on a night when Neemias Queta was inactive in street clothes, and Kristaps Porziņģis prepared to miss the second half of a back-to-back the following night to manage his calf soreness. Shortly after, the Celtics ruled Kornet out with an adductor strain and he never returned to the bench.
“I tried running a little bit and it was just grabbing more and more,” Kornet told CLNS Media/CelticsBlog on Sunday. “So, I had to go back. We checked on it and kind of called it … it’s a grade one strain, which, all this stuff is actually very minor. There’s just going to be a little discomfort and we’re working through it. It’s already been progressing day-by-day, so just have to keep up on the track until you work your way up to full speed and it feels fine.”
Kornet — who suffered the injury dunking during pre-game layup lines — affirmed Joe Mazzulla’s earlier indication that he’d miss one week, saying it usually takes 1-2 weeks to return, but there’s no exact timetable as they take it day-by-day. He had filled depth big minutes behind Porziņģis and Al Horford, particularly in games where Boston plays more double-big alignments. Mazzulla had said this week that when healthy, the Celtics decided on Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Horford and Kornet as their nine-man rotation.
Lamar Stevens filled in admirably at the five in the second half on Thursday after a rocky start in his first major rotation minutes of the season during the first half. Stevens started against the Magic on Friday with Porziņģis, Horford and Kornet out, helping the Celtics piece together a win alongside Oshae Brissett and Queta, who filled Kornet’s role in Sunday’s second game of the mini series.
“I was already out by the start of the game,” Kornet said of his absence on Thursday. “I was back here and we did some treatment, I was doing that, and at that point, it was like, ‘ok, I’ll just hang out in the back here and wait until the end.’”
Kornet suffered the injury twisting the wrong way on a dunk, an addition to an injury-filled career that had improved since he arrived in Boston in the Daniel Theis trade in 2021. He expects to travel on the west coast trip on Monday in preparation to potentially return at some point during the trip that runs through Christmas. A one week timeline leaves him out of Tuesday’s game at Golden State and the back-to-back at Sacramento.
The Celtics are also assessing Porziņģis’ status for those consecutive games. Porziņģis hopes to play, as he did on Friday when Boston held him back, as they begin to manage his playing time more carefully following a four-game absence with a calf strain. Boston flashed the ability to win with different combinations in the front court, even down all of their rotation big men on Friday. How Boston staggers their time off this week will prove interesting. Horford sat the front end of a back-to-back earlier this season for the first time.
“It’s sort of day-by-day,” Kornet said. “It’s not a very exact thing, but it’s helping to keep progressing day-by-day. That’s how it’s already started being, that’s a good sign, so we’ll see … I had one on my right side two years ago, it was the exact same thing where it was very low, it was a week to two and I was back playing.”
