It’s been a strange couple of weeks for the Boston Celtics. There’s no question that they’re still one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference, but their current run of form will frustrate fans who expect the defending champions to repeat their impressive 2024 Finals run.
Their narrow win over the New Orleans Pelicans is a lowlight for New England hoops fans. A team second in the Eastern Conference struggling to put away a squad at the rock bottom of the West has Joe Mazzulla scratching his head on how his team could prevent such situations from causing them further headaches.
While there aren’t many positive things to write home about the C’s performances this past week, Kristaps Porzingis’ improvement is great for Boston sports fans to talk about. For a player once tipped to lose his starting spot a week ago, he’s slowly solidifying his spot with his much-improved shooting.
Fans curious about KP’s sudden improvement got a response from the man himself.
Kristaps Porzingis talks about mindset that helped him break his shooting slump for the Celtics
Porzingis was terrible to start the year. His first ten games saw him shoot at an appalling 31.1%. While the C’s barely lost during the first 20 games of the season, his lack of production was hurting the team’s chances.
However, the past six games saw Porzingis’ shooting efficiency spike to 41.2%. While these numbers are still far from ideal, it shows that the Latvian is regaining his shooting stroke and is bound to become an effective contributor to the squad.
Porzingis talked about the adjustments he made that helped him bounce back offensively, per masslive.com’s Souichi Terada:
“For myself, I don’t overreact,” Porzingis said. “I just keep the same routine. I look at realistically, is my wrist hurting, is it this, my feet? Just recalibrate everything and then having the same confidence as always shooting the ball. Can’t start having some overthinking moments and things like that. And that’s it. Honestly just keeping it simple. That’s how I do it.”
Porzingis is having a bit of a down year for the Celtics: he’s currently putting up 18.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1.4 blocks a game. His performance during the C’s 119-120 win against the Pelicans saw him end the night with 19 points, 11 boards, one dime, and three rejections.
If KP consistently puts up numbers like he did against the Pelicans, then he should see his scoring numbers spike to over 20 PPG again.
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