The Boston Celtics were deflated at the end of Game 4 of their playoff series against the New York Knicks. After a big lead slipped away from Boston, star wing Jayson Tatum went down with a devastating torn Achilles and will be out for the rest of this season and probably next season as well.

Tatum's injury is obviously debilitating to Boston's title hopes and its hopes of getting out of this series, but Joe Mazzulla and company made it work in Game 5 at home on Wednesday night. Thanks to a hot shooting night and an incredible game from Luke Kornet (yes, you read that right), the Celtics are headed back to New York after a 127-102 win.

One player that was notably absent from most of Game 5 was Kristaps Porzingis. The Latvian big man has had a tough series while battling an illness and a physical Knicks defense, and he played just 12 minutes on Wednesday night.

After the game, Mazzulla revealed the somewhat scary reason why Porzingis didn't play all that much, via Daniel Donabedian of ClutchPoints.

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“He couldn't breathe,” Mazzulla said. “He was available if absolutely necessary. He was having difficulty breathing and he wanted to be out there. If we absolutely needed him, he would've been able to go.”

Thankfully for the Celtics, they didn't end up needing Porzingis because of Kornet's heroics. The backup big man had one of the best games of his career in any game, much less a playoff contest. When the dust settled, Kornet finished with 10 points on a perfect 5-for-5 shooting, nine rebounds and seven blocked shots on the night.

Still, if the Celtics are going to come all the way back and steal this series from the Knicks, they are likely going to need Porzingis to come up big at some point. The Celtics need all of their role players to step up with Tatum sidelined, and on Wednesday they got that from Kornet, Payton Pritchard and Derrick White. However, Game 6 or potentially Game 7 could be Porzingis' time to step up and come through for his team.