Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis returned from injury to play his first game in a month during his team's 107—89 Game 1 win over the Dallas Mavericks—and the word rust didn't even come to mind when watching how the veteran big man played on Thursday night.
Making his NBA Finals debut, a red-hot Porzingis scored 18 first-half points to help the Celtics blow the game open early and carry a 21-point lead into the locker room at halftime. But Porzingis's final line—20 points, six rebounds, three blocks—doesn't do justice to just how dominant the 7'2" big man was against his former team.
One 30-second stretch from the first quarter demonstrates just how much of an impact Porzingis had on both ends for the Celtics. Here's the sequence, courtesy of Kevin O'Connor on X, formerly Twitter.
