“This is obviously pretty cool to get shouted out by J. Cole. Nothing that I was like, you know, hoping for, but it’s pretty cool.”
Kristaps Porzingis stands at 7-foot-2, and the rapper J. Cole used the Celtics’ center’s height as a metaphor in one of his songs on the recently released album, “Might Delete Later.”
“I just want to kick back, take trips, make big chips stack till they’re tall as Kristaps,” Cole rapped on the song “Huntin’ Wabbitz.” “Me and your squad is mismatched. Your calves ain’t strong enough to follow his path.”
Porzingis said people reached out to tell him about the lyrics Friday morning.
“As soon as I woke up, [there were] a lot of messages and people were like ‘Oh, he shouted you out so it was pretty cool,’” Porzingis said.
The Boston big man was asked to rank where being mentioned in the rap song falls on his list of accomplishments.
“I don’t know, but I want to win a championship,” Porzingis said. “This is obviously pretty cool to get shouted out by J. Cole. Nothing that I was like, you know, hoping for, but it’s pretty cool.”
Porzingis posted a 20-point, 11-rebound double-double in Friday’s win over Sacramento. He shot 7-for-10 from the field and made both of his 3-point attempts in just 24 minutes of action.
He described the end of the 101-100 victory as “beautiful” and “chaotic.” Joe Mazzulla stuck with his bench in the fourth quarter after Boston had built up a big lead. The Kings almost completed the comeback, but Xavier Tillman hit a go-ahead shot with 7.4 seconds remaining.
“It was good. The Kings made a run at the end and [De’Aaron Fox] is always so clutch,” Porzingis said. “He hit that three off the backboard and went up and then X closed it out with that little floater. It was pretty cool. I think it helped. Its good for our team chemistry, those kinds of moments. Seeing Joe all hyped up on the sideline was pretty cool. Good win for us.”
After the game, Mazzulla said the game was the perfect environment for practice. The Kings, who are eighth in the Western Conference and still fighting for a spot in the playoffs probably didn’t view it that way. Porzingis admitted that the Celtics are in kind of an unusual spot with the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference locked up so early.
“That is kind of crazy,” Porzingis said. “We were experimenting a lot [Friday] and yeah, it wasn’t perfect from our side but we were experimenting and working on some stuff from our side and still came out with a win. That’s pretty cool.”
