Golden State center Kristaps Porzingis has been seeing a lot of familiar faces lately, and that will continue when the Warriors visit the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night.
Porzingis spent two seasons with the Celtics before he was traded to Atlanta after the 2025 season. The Hawks shipped him to Golden State in exchange for guard Buddy Hield and forward Jonathan Kuminga in February. Porzingis has also spent time with the New York Knicks, the Dallas Mavericks and the Washington Wizards during his NBA career.
“He’s quite a talent,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “We’re also on the Kristaps Porzingis reunion tour. It’s kind of crazy, we are playing every one of his former teams. The Knicks, Washington, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas. All five of his teams, we’re seeing on this trip. Players usually get up for playing against their old team and I think that’s the case with Kristaps.”
Porzingis had a 30-point performance — the most points he’s scored in a game since joining the Warriors — to help Golden State end a five-game losing streak by beating Washington 125-117 on Monday night. He shot 8-for-13 from the field and made 13 of 14 free throws.
“He’s gotten his legs underneath him,” Kerr said. “You could see it. He just scores so easily. Really closed the game with his free throws.
“Not a great basketball game, but we needed the win and were good enough to get the win.”
Porzingis played against Boston in his debut with Golden State on Feb. 19, but Wednesday’s game will be the first time he’s played in Boston since he left the Celtics. He was a big piece of the puzzle when Boston won the 2024 NBA championship.
The Celtics are coming off Monday’s 120-112 home victory over Phoenix, but are 2-2 in their last four outings. Jaylen Brown scored a game-high 41 points in Monday’s win, and Jayson Tatum finished with 21. Brown tossed in 18 points in the final quarter, when Boston scored 14 of the game’s final 16 points.
Tatum said he and Brown have always fed off each other during crunch time.
“I think we’ve done a really good job of that over the last nine years, especially probably these last six,” Tatum said. “We’ve just found a way to really complement each other on both ends of the floor and win a bunch of basketball games and win a bunch of playoff series and win a championship, so just something we’ve been doing for a long time.”
Monday’s victory over Washington was Kerr’s 600th coaching victory of his NBA career. He became the 28th NBA coach to win at least 600 games.
Kerr reached 600 wins in 943 regular-season games. Only three NBA coaches have needed fewer games to achieve 600 victories: Phil Jackson (805), Pat Riley (832) and Gregg Popovich (887).
“It’s surreal to hear my name in that group,” Kerr said. “But I can tell you one thing that bonds us all together, those names and mine, (and) it’s talent. You can’t win in this league without great players, and I was blessed from the day I took this job with incredible talent.”
–Field Level Media
