The previous time Kristaps Porzingis left a basketball court, he admitted he was confused and frustrated.
When he exited Tuesday night, he was banged up and limping.
And in the Knicks’ eyes, injured is worse.
The injury does not appear serious, though, and Porzingis, who suffered a bruised thigh, has fingers crossed he could be back for Thursday’s game with the Nets at the Garden.
“It’s a contusion,” said Porzingis, who exited with 11:31 left in the Knicks’ 87-81 comeback victory over the Pacers at the Garden. “It’s pretty stiff. It’s stiffening up now. It’s nothing serious. Nothing with the knee, nothing with the hips, so it’s only a thigh contusion.”
Though any time out for Porzingis is expected to be brief, no one can pinpoint just how long.
“It’s really hard. I’m limping right now with the stiffness I have, but you never know,” Porzingis said. “I recover pretty quickly, so hopefully the next game.”
That would be against the Nets, and after the Knicks lost at Barclays Center on Sunday, Porzingis uttered his comments about offensive confusion in general and team frustration with losing in particular.
“I made those comments after the game and I spoke my mind,” he said. “That’s not something I really want to keep talking about.”
Before he collided with Indiana’s Monta Ellis and took a knee in his right thigh early in the fourth quarter — a move that probably left coach Jeff Hornacek gasping before he exhaled because, he said, “It didn’t look like it was his ankle or his knee” — Porzingis was having something of an uneven game. He was exceptionally active, but shot 5-of-17, scoring 11 points.
“A lot of missed shots, yeah,” Porzingis said. “My shot was flat today. But I tried to be active, I tried to help out blocking shots and doing what I can do outside of scoring. … Sometimes I try to feed off [and] get some energy from the baskets. But that’s not how I need do it. I always have to remember the things I can do even when I’m not scoring. And that way I can still have a good game even when I’m not making every shot.”
So he did other things. Like defend. Porzingis, who was averaging 2.02 blocks with 14 in his past three games, added two more Tuesday, when he started at center again.
Before the game, Hornacek gave a basic concession speech on the Knicks’ playoffs chances. Porzingis did not dispute the notion, but said the Knicks can’t just go belly up and have to keep playing.
“There’s no other choice right now. We have to go game by game and not always thinking ‘playoffs, playoffs, playoffs.’ The mindset has to be to go game by game and just try to get better every game,” Porzingis said. “If we fall short … I don’t know if we’re mathematically out of the playoffs, but we’ve just got to go game by game and then we’ll see what happens.”