Celtics waiting on Kristaps Porzingis' status for Game 5 - ESPN

BOSTON — As the Celtics attempt to close out the NBA Finals with a victory over the Mavericks, it remains to be seen whether Kristaps Porzingis will be back on the court for Game 5 on Monday night.

«I haven't talked to him yet,» Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters at TD Garden on Sunday. «Going to talk about that before we start [practice].… So I'm not sure kind of where he's at.

»But he's trying and doing everything he can to try to put himself in position to be out there. I know that for sure."

Porzingis missed Games 3 and 4 in Dallas with a torn medial retinaculum allowing dislocation of the posterior tibialis tendon in his left leg. Boston didn't make Porzingis available to reporters Sunday, though in a very brief conversation with ESPN as he walked off the court, the center said he was feeling better.

The 7-foot-3 Latvian, who hadn't played past the first round of the playoffs before this season, missed more than five weeks with a right calf strain suffered in Game 4 of Boston's first-round series against the Miami Heat. He returned for the NBA Finals, with Boston going plus-25 in the 44 minutes he played in the first two games and sitting at even across the 52 he did not, before he was injured during Game 2.

The Celtics have said Porzingis was considered day-to-day with what the team described as a «rare» injury. He sat out Game 3, then was listed as active for Game 4, though Mazzulla said Porzingis was «not quite ready» for game action and would be used only in very specific circumstances.

None of those came to pass, though, on a night when the Celtics were thoroughly dominated by the Mavericks in virtually every possible way, meaning «Porzingis Watch» came back to Boston for Game 5. His status for the game