After watching the Celtics’ first 17 games from the bench, Kristaps Porzingis made his long-awaited season debut Monday night against the Los Angeles Clippers.

Porzingis started the game — giving Boston its preferred starting five for the first time since the opening round of last season’s NBA playoffs — played 22 minutes and finished with 16 points, six rebounds, two assists, two blocks and one steal as Boston breezed to a 126-94 victory at TD Garden.

“It felt great, honestly,” the veteran center said in his first public comments since Celtics media day. “It wasn’t super long, but it was a long rehab, and I was itching to get back out there with this team after winning a championship. And it was a good beginning, good first game back.”

A long rehab, but not an especially grueling one, according to Porzingis. The 7-foot-2 big man said he had to stay off of his ankle for four to six weeks after undergoing surgery to repair the “rare” leg injury he suffered during the NBA Finals, but that he didn’t hit any setbacks once he was back on his feet.

“Honestly, I would say it was one of the easiest rehabs for me,” said Porzingis, who played hurt in the Game 5 Finals clincher knowing he would need surgery shortly thereafter.

Porzingis he “started to feel pretty good almost a month ago” but acknowledged his pre-Thanksgiving return was ahead of schedule. Most projected timetables had him debuting no earlier than December.

“I would say the whole rehab, I was ahead of it all the time,” Porzingis said. “I was itching to do more, start more, sprints, this, this, contact, 1-on-1. I was always asking the medical staff to do more. But I was still smart, and we completed all the stages to get to this point.

“And I told them, ‘If you guys give me the green light and I can start playing, I want to do this as soon as possible.’ So, yeah, that was it. I’m out here maybe even a month early, and it’s good to be back out here.”

So, how did he feel in his first game back?

“Honestly, I felt better than I expected,” said Porzingis, who launched 3-pointers on three of the Celtics’ first four possessions. “Obviously, the first wind is pretty crazy — lungs burning, legs burning, everything. But after that, I was decent to normal. Even on the couple of lobs — (Jaylen Brown) threw me a lob, Payton (Pritchard) threw me a lob — both of them I had flat tires like crazy. Like, didn’t get up at all. But it was good to be back out there.”

Despite that sluggishness and a 1-for-6 showing from beyond the arc, Porzingis made an immediate impact in his first game action since June 17. After a delayed pregame entrance that Pritchard called “incredible,” he provided versatility, floor-spacing ability and much-needed rim protection, shoring up what had been arguably Boston’s greatest weakness during its 14-3 start to the season without him.

“I thought he played well,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “We were able to get back to some of our defensive versatility. Obviously, a little bit of rim protection, a little bit more physicality on the ball because he was back there, so I thought he brought that. Offensively, he just really helped our spacing. So it was good to get him back.”

The reintegration process, Porzingis said, was seamless — and didn’t even require any pregame locker-room conversations to get him and his teammates on the same page. It helped that he was around the team throughout his rehab, including traveling with the Celtics to road games.

“Honestly, for me at least it felt like, ‘Boom, I’m back in the lineup,’” Porzingis said. “I think we already — honestly, it was a pretty smooth transition last season when I started playing for the first time. And then once we found a little bit of rhythm, figure out each other’s games and stuff, it’s been very natural.

“Even with me not playing back-to-backs or this, guys know my game now. Even being out now for a little bit to start the season, it was very natural for me to be back out there in the starting lineup.”

Moving forward, Porzingis expects to have no additional limitations outside of the precautions the Celtics placed on him last season, most notably sitting him for one game of most back-to-backs. Boston just wrapped up one of those (it beat Minnesota 107-105 on Sunday night) and has two more on its schedule next week.

“I think it’s pretty open,” Porzingis said. “Not any crazy limitations, even tonight. … Probably the same schedule that we had last season, no? So we’ll see. But overall, I’m feeling pretty good, and I don’t think there will be many limitations.”