With or without Kristaps

Boston fans, offer up your medial retinaculums to stabilize KP's posterior tibialis tendon!

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler; Edwin Landseer; 1820

Bad news for the Celtics: Kristaps Porzingis suffered a torn medial retinaculum. It gets worse: the injury allowed dislocation of the posterior tibialis tendon in his left leg.

If you understand any of that, congratulations. Now go do your rounds.

This sounds like a relatively rare injury divorced of major catastrophic ankle problems, but perhaps the rarity is in the specificity. I believe this is what we would call in layman circles a “bum wheel” or a “sore foot.”

The Celtics may be trying to protect Porzingis from criticism if he can’t play in Game 3 or beyond. Being unavailable due to a vague “foot injury” in the NBA Finals could draw critiques of Porzingis’ reliability and toughness. Being unavailable because of a torn medial retinaculum allowing dislocation of the posterior tibialis tendon in your left leg sounds more serious. This is like how you tell your boss you’re suffering some “gastrointestinal distress” instead of “tummy troubles.”

Anyways, losing Porzingis would obviously be a blow to the Celtics. As many have noted, Boston is +25 for the series … and Porzingis is +25 in his 44 minutes. That would indicate that through two games, he is the margin. I’m not sure that quite reflects how good the Celtics have been overall.