Kristaps Porzingis is both a center and a showman.

He lives for the roar of the crowd, especially when that crowd is inside TD Garden. He’s the closest thing to a professional wrestler on the Celtics’ roster, and he wears that title proudly.

So, when an errant elbow from Magic center Goga Bitadze left Porzingis leaking blood from a gash on his forehead, he capitalized on a chance for another “WWE moment.”

After trainers placed a towel over his bleeding head, Porzingis broke into a wide, devilish smile and gestured to the crowd as he walked toward the Celtics tunnel. A few seconds later, he was back on the court, shooting two free throws with a bulky band-aid above his left eye.

Porzingis then headed back to the training room, received five stitches to close the cut and returned to play six of the final seven minutes in Boston’s 109-100 win over Orlando, which gave the Celtics a 2-0 lead in the first-round playoff series.

Checking out and watching the rest of the game from the locker room, Porzingis said, was never a consideration.

“Honestly, how can I not come (back) out?” he said. “Like, ‘Oh, I have five stitches, I can’t play anymore.’ My legs work, everything works, so of course I’m going to be out there. And you know me. I like these moments. Coming back out again, getting a little love from the crowd. It just happens within the game, and this is not going to stop me. So I’m going to keep going.”

The scene mirrored a similar incident three weeks earlier, when Porzingis took a shot to the nose during a late-season win over the Phoenix Suns. That blow opened up a cut between his eyes, and he grinned and raised his arms triumphantly as he exited the court. (Porzingis did not reenter that meaningless game, but he did return to the bench after getting four stitches on the bridge of his nose.)

“I love my WWE moments, for sure,” said Porzingis, who also received rousing ovations from the Garden crowd after he returned from his lower leg injuries in last year’s NBA Finals. “It just happens in the game, you know? And then you know me, like, I always love engaging with the crowd. And I already knew, like getting hit again, blood again, like the crowd was going to just, you know, go with it. So it was cool. It was fun.”

Porzingis was more than a sideshow in Boston’s Game 2 win. He bounced back from an underwhelming five-point performance in the series opener to notch 20 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and two steals. He went just 4-for-15 from the field and 0-for-5 from 3-point range but offset those shooting struggles by tying his season high in free-throw attempts (10-for-14) and being active on the offensive glass (five offensive boards).

The Celtics outscored the Magic by 15 points over Porzingis’ 34 minutes, the best mark of any player.

“I was just more aggressive,” Porzingis said. “My shot’s still, you know — rushed maybe a few shots. I still feel like I have a much higher level to play offensively especially. I missed a lot. I missed even free throws, I missed a lot of stuff. So I expect myself to be a lot better offensively. … First game was not ideal, maybe a bit too passive in some moments also. So just staying aggressive and finding my rhythm.”

Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla commended Porzingis for “bringing a physical dimension for us on both ends of the floor that’s really important” against the rough-and-tumble Magic, who have committed 40 personal fouls and two flagrants — including one on Bitadze for the aforementioned elbow — through two playoff games.

“We’re going to be us,” Porzingis said. “We’re not going to let anybody punk us. And we expect teams to be doing this kind of stuff, to get in our heads, to try to provoke us, to try to maybe get some reaction out of us, some technical maybe, something. It’s an emotional game, obviously, so we weren’t surprised but we’re just not going to take it. So we’re going to hit them right back.”

The uber-intense Mazzulla, who famously said he wished the Garden parquet had tasted like blood after he kissed it during the Celtics’ banner-raising ceremony, also enjoyed seeing Porzingis’ head wound and ensuing theatrics.

“I think he has an innate ability to take things very serious, and at the same time have great perspective,” the coach said. “You see how he can control his environment really well with how he handles the crowd and how he handles the physicality of it, and he can maintain his poise, and he just has a great way about him. I think that that helps us.

“And yeah, I do. I love watching him. I like watching him bleed on the court. I think it’s important, and then he comes back in and does his job. So I do like that about him.”

Latest on Tatum

A wrist injury kept Jayson Tatum out of the Celtics’ Game 2 win. Whether he’ll be available for Game 3 on Friday remains to be seen. He is listed as doubtful.

Mazzulla offered an update on Tatum’s injury — which Mazzulla called “a severe bone bruise” on his shooting wrist — Thursday in an interview with 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Zolak & Bertrand.”

“There will definitely be a chance (of him playing Friday),” the Celtics coach said. “He’s dealing with a severe bone bruise, and he’s day to day. He’s progressively gotten a little bit better each day. (On Wednesday), he went through all the protocols and did everything he could possibly do up to the last moment to try and play, and just wasn’t able to do it. But he’ll go back at it again today, and he’s in that day-to-day process right now. But at the end of the day, I know he’ll do whatever it takes to put himself in position to play and put our team in position to win. That’s just kind of who he is, and we’re just trusting that.”

Mazzulla was asked whether the injury would require rest to heal, or if Tatum would be able to play through it without causing further damage. ESPN’s Shams Charania earlier in the week called it a “pain tolerance injury.”

“That question’s way above my pay grade,” Mazzulla replied. “All I can tell you is at the end of the day, he’s doing whatever he can, every minute of the 24 hours, to put him in position to try and be out there on the court. I trust his process, I trust his mindset, I trust the people around him that help put him in position, and that’s all we can do.”

Tatum had played in all 114 Celtics playoff games in his career before Wednesday’s DNP. Co-star Jaylen Brown carried the load in his absence, scoring 36 points on efficient 12-of-19 shooting and adding 10 rebounds, five assists and one steal.

Veteran guard Jrue Holiday (right hamstring) is questionable for Game 3.