Boston Celtics starting center Kristaps Porzingis suddenly finds himself in some rare air.
According to Abby Chin of NBC Sports Boston, the 7-foot-2 big man became just the 10th player in league history to notch 900 or more blocks and 900 or more made regular season 3-point shots midway through the third quarter of the Celtics’ ongoing matchup against the tanking-but-feisty Brooklyn Nets.
Per Bobby Krivitsky of Forbes, Porzingis’ 900 career blocks rank him 15th for current NBA players. He has made 926 career triples as of this writing.
The one-time All-Star already has racked up a whopping two rejections of Nets attempts, with plenty of time left to add to that total.
After trailing Brooklyn 49-44 in the first half, the shorthanded Celtics rallied in the third quarter, outscoring the Nets 27-22.
Rookie Baylor Scheierman nailed a buzzer-beating trey to put Boston up by a single point, 71-70, heading into the fourth period.
Boston is down both its 2025 All-Stars in All-NBA power forward Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Sharpshooting reserve forward Sam Hauser is starting for Brown, while sixth man power forward/center Al Horford is in for Tatum at the four spot.
Porzingis and All-Defensive Team guard Derrick White currently lead Boston in scoring with 16 points apiece. Porzingis has gone 6-of-9 from the field (1-of-3 from deep) and 3-of-3 from the foul line, while grabbing seven boards, dishing out two dimes, blocking two shots and swiping one steal.
The oft-hurt Porzingis is playing in just his 34th game in 2024-25 with this Nets clash, and clearly is being sought out more in offensive sets than he normally would be.
Across his previous 33 healthy contests this year, Porzingis has been averaging 19.1 points on .447/.394/.813 shooting splits, 6.6 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.6 blocks and 0.8 steals a night.
The 29-year-old was only healthy for 57 regular season contests and just seven playoff games during Boston’s run to the championship last season.
Ultimately, what matters most is that he can play (hopefully) all 16 winning games the Celtics play en route to defending their title this coming spring and summer, so the fact that he’s going to finish his second season in Boston playing fewer regular season games than he played during his first won’t bother the Celtics faithful if he can survive four playoff rounds intact.