Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum shreds an Achilles tendon in one of the most harrowing scenes imaginable, ending his season and putting his team on the brink. So who comes to Boston’s rescue, one game later?
Why, Luke Kornet, of course.
The “Green Kornet,” as he is known, according to his Basketball-Reference.com page.
The backup big, in his eighth season after going undrafted out of Vanderbilt, put up 10 points, nine rebounds and no fewer than seven blocks while playing a little over 25 minutes in Game 5 of the C’s Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Knicks. While it might not have been the biggest reason for Boston’s 127-102 victory – Derrick White scored 34 points, leading six guys in double figures – it certainly offered an unexpected pick-me-up for a team left reeling by Tatum’s injury. (And one that is still staring at a 3-2 series deficit heading into Game 6, Friday in MSG.)
Kornet’s performance also exemplified one of the many subplots to these playoffs – how opportunity has met circumstance in some noteworthy cases. How players that once were lost have now been found.
Consider Julius Randle, so dominant for Minnesota in its series against the Lakers and Warriors, after repeated postseason failures during his time with the Knicks. Consider Aaron Gordon, who has won two games for Denver with last-second shots, part of the continuing rejuvenation of a career that once seemed stalled. And consider Jonathan Kuminga, who emerged as a dynamic scorer after he was freed from the Golden State bench in the wake of Stephen Curry’s hamstring injury.
From afar, it always looked like Randle thought he was better than he was with the Knicks – that he forced things and was frustratingly inconsistent as a result. While he made three All-Star teams in his five years in Gotham (something I didn’t realize until scanning his Basketball-Reference.com page), his flaws were laid bare in the postseason, as he shot 34 percent over 15 games. His 17.1 point-per-game scoring average was over five points beneath his regular-season norm.
He and Donte DiVincenzo were dealt to the T-Wolves for Karl-Anthony Towns on the eve of training camp this season, a trade that appears to have helped both teams. And now we are seeing a new version of Randle, an 11-year veteran playing for his fourth team. He is decisive. He is aggressive. And he is versatile, popping from the perimeter and bulling to the rim.
His numbers in these playoffs are 23.9 points a game, on .509/.345/.889 shooting splits. Certainly he benefits from the defensive attention paid to teammate Anthony Edwards, but it is not just that; clearly Chris Finch and his staff have unlocked this guy. Clearly they have given him room to operate, freedom to succeed.
It is much the same for Gordon. Orlando made the athletic forward the No. 4 pick in the 2014 draft (the same draft in which Randle went seventh), but he was miscast as a franchise centerpiece in Orlando, averaging 12.9 points on 45 percent shooting during six-plus seasons there.
He has increased those respective numbers to 14.6 and 54 percent in his four-plus years Denver (including a run to the championship two years ago). That’s undoubtedly a result of playing alongside Nikola Jokic, one of the most willing and creative passers to ever play in the league.
Gordon is well aware of the impact the three-time MVP has had on his career, to the point that he gifted him a pickup truck a few years back; he told Yahoo Sports’ Jake Fischer it was like a quarterback getting each of his linemen a car, only in reverse.
But it’s also clear that Gordon has made a leap as a player. A 29 percent shooter from the arc in ‘23-24 (32 percent for his career), he knocked ‘em down at a 44 percent clip this season. And it was his triple that beat Oklahoma City in the closing seconds of Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series. He also had a buzzer-beating dunk to win Game 4 of a first-round series against the Clippers.
In Denver’s 119-107 Game 6 victory on Thursday, his stats – five points, seven rebounds and seven assists – did not amaze. But the Nuggets, who forced a Game 7 Sunday in Oklahoma City, were plus-18 when he was on the floor. Only guard Jamal Murray (plus-30) was better among Gordon’s teammates.
As for Kuminga, he had fallen out of Steve Kerr’s rotation, to the point that he didn’t even play in four of the seven games in the Warriors’ opening series against Houston. Then Kerr was left with nowhere to turn after Curry’s injury, and Kuminga reeled off games of 18, 30, 23 and 26 in the last four games of Golden State’s series against Minnesota.
Some concerning numbers, though: Kuminga, despite standing 6-10, didn’t have a single rebound in Game 4 of that series, and averaged three a game overall. He was also minus-13 and minus-12 in the last two games, as the Dubs dropped four in a row and were eliminated by the T-wolves.
Still, there is the temptation to believe that there is something there with Kuminga. That it might not be completely unearthed until he is elsewhere – until opportunity meets some other circumstance. For all his flaws as a defender and rebounder, he’s still only 22, and blessed with surpassing offensive gifts. Surely someone else would be willing to kick the tires, should the Warriors move on from him (as seems likely). Surely he has a future in this league. It appears to be a matter of finding the right spot, the right fit, the right moment. It often is.