INDIANAPOLIS — Almost two years to the day, Kristaps Porzingis was down underneath the basket in Madison Square Garden holding his left knee, wondering what might become of his NBA career.
Fast forward to Monday night against the Indiana Pacers, and he was putting together two of the best back-to-back games of his career, doing something he never did in New York.
Porzingis finished with a season-high 38 points and 12 rebounds — his second straight 35-point, 10-rebound game, after only ever having one in 222 previous games — in an impressive 112-103 victory over the Pacers, made even more impressive by the fact Luka Doncic was missing his third straight game with an ankle injury.
“That’s something in the future I want to figure out, how I can be effective also when Luka is playing,” Porzingis said. “It’s something we’ve been working on. I’m in a good rhythm now and I want to keep it going. I think we’re playing pretty good basketball, we’re moving the ball, playing aggressive.”
Doncic will miss at least three more games as he recovers from an ankle sprain. But Porzingis found a rhythm early against Indiana, hitting six 3s and going 12-of-12 from the free throw line. The Mavericks ran the offense through Porzingis, using him in multiple actions and trying to force mismatched switches.
“We just go to a more free-flowing style. We call less plays,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “We’ve done this enough now where guys are really getting a feel for how to play with each other when Luka’s out. We need him back, but these guys are doing a great job.”
Porzingis was critical of himself for one thing, though: his defense. He felt like he should’ve done a better job against All-Star Domantas Sabonis, who finished one assist shy of a triple-double (26 points, 12 rebounds, 9 assists).
“I take a lot of pride in my defense and I feel like Sabonis made some good moves on me,” Porzingis said. “He got deep in the paint. I was a half-step late on a lot of those shots. I’m disappointed in that sense, but I’m glad we got the win.”
Sabonis attacked Porzingis on the interior throughout the game as the Mavs mixed man-to-man and zone looks, but on the other end, Porzingis stretched the Pacers’ defense to the max, well beyond the 3-point line.
“When he’s hot, he’s a special player,” Sabonis said. “It’s tough, even if you switch, he’s taller than everybody and can just shoot over you, especially tonight he was getting calls, too. So it just made it a really difficult task.”
The Pacers were playing their third game with Victor Oladipo back from a year off himself, and as they work to re-acclimate him are adjusting to some choppy play. Oladipo is on a strict minutes restriction, and on top of it the Pacers were without T.J. Warren and his 18.4 points per game as he recovers from a concussion sustained in Saturday’s game against the Knicks.
“In the second half, we didn’t make any breaks for ourselves,” Pacers coach Nate McMillan said. “When we were able to get back into the game, we would have a breakdown on the perimeter and they would get to the basket or get to the free-throw line. They made big shots to stop our runs.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.