SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ Word came about 35 minutes before Wednesday night's tipoff: Kristaps Porzingis had been scratched from the starting lineup due to right knee soreness.
Again.
So when the Dallas Mavericks took the Golden 1 Center court and ultimately beat the Sacramento Kings, 127-123, behind Luka Doncic's 20th career triple-double, they played for the ninth straight game without prized 7-foot-3 New York Knicks acquisition and five-year $158 million contract-extension signee Porzingis.
With this latest development, what began 16 days earlier as a minor concern, then lingered as a puzzling continuation, has morphed into a genuine worry.
Even though the Mavericks aren't publicly expressing this concern, at least not after a game in which Doncic registered 25 points, a career-high 17 assists and 15 rebounds, their fans certainly expressed alarm on social media _ while Knicks fans unleashed a collective I-told-you-so.
"We'll see," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. "Hopefully he feels better tomorrow and we'll just continue to move forward and hope he continues to feel better. He was doing real well on a day-to-day basis. It just didn't feel quite right before the game.
"So we're not messing with it."
After Tuesday's victory over Golden State in San Francisco, Porzingis said the soreness had gone away and had not returned during or after ramped-up activity.
But when he took the court to warm up for Wednesday's game, pain and discomfort returned. He said he informed Mavericks director of player health and performance Casey Smith, who made the decision to scratch Porzingis from the lineup.
"Just a little bit of pain in certain movements," Porzingis said. "Didn't feel that good out there. Casey made the decision to take some more time.
"It felt great yesterday. I had a solid workout, 25 or 30 minutes. Felt good. Didn't feel any sharp pain or anything like that. And today I kind of felt it a little bit when I started warming up. I felt it more and more and I told the medical staff."
In five NBA seasons, Porzingis, 24, has yet to play more than 72 games. He has played in 217 of a possible 369 games.
By missing his 10th game of this season, as Dallas on Wednesday reached the season's midway point, Porzingis assured that he again will not crack the 72-game mark.
It appears the Mavericks can only hope at this point that he plays somewhere in the vicinity of the 66 games he played in his last full season, 2016-17, before suffering a torn ACL in his left knee on Jan. 18, 2018. By the time Porzingis returned to the court at the start of this season, it had been 20 months since his last regular-season game.
About 90 minutes before Wednesday's tipoff, Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle had confirmed Porzingis' expected availability, "assuming everything goes well (during warmups)."
Obviously, it did not go as well as hoped. Porzingis spent about 15 minutes stretching with his physiotherapist, Manolo Valdivieso, but once Porzingis took the court and began shooting, it was apparent that he was moving gingerly.
"I was so hyped today and yesterday," Porzingis said. "I wanted to play so bad. It is what it is. These things happen and we've got to think of the long term. And I'll be fine."
Asked whether he is concerned about the fact that the pain went away only to return, he said: "I don't really know what it is, so I don't know. I put all my trust in the medical staff when I started feeling my sensation. Whenever they tell me I'm good to go, I'll be ready to go."
Carlisle's pregame assessment of what the Mavericks had missed during Porzingis' absence spoke to the Latvia native's long-term importance to the franchise.
"You lose a 7-3 guy that can rebound and protect the rim like that, it's going to make your rim protection and rebounding more challenging," Carlisle said. "It's a big loss when a guy like that is out.
"Our guys have done a good job of playing without him, but he's a difference-maker. And when you don't have a guy like that, you're going to feel the difference."
Including Wednesday's game, the Mavericks have gone 5-4 during Porzingis' latest absence. Much earlier this season, he had missed the Nov. 9 game at Memphis (a Mavericks victory) out of precaution, because it was the second game of a back-to-back.
