Kyrie Irving doesn’t know how Bane does it.
A facial fracture suffered last Friday means the Boston Celtics point guard has to wear a protective mask for the considerable future, and Tuesday night’s game against the Nets in Brooklyn marked the 2017 debut of “Masked Kyrie.”
Unlike his super-villain counterpart, though, Irving didn’t seem to relish in his changed identity.
Take, for example, the game’s very first timeout, after which Irving waited approximately 0.0 seconds to rip his mask off his face:
Top of the key 3 from Kyrie forces a Nets timeout four minutes into the game, and he can't wait to get that freaking mask off. pic.twitter.com/AMnMMAMhh4
— Dan Devine (@YourManDevine) November 15, 2017
That would be a theme of the evening. The Celtics star constantly fiddled with the clear mask throughout the entire game, readjusting or taking it off during nearly every stoppage.
Mask on… pic.twitter.com/JmKRdL0VfT
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) November 15, 2017
At one point, he tried to pawn it off on C’s color commentator Brian Scalabrine.
Here is Kyrie Irving checking out of the game for the first time and (temporarily) giving his mask to @Scalabrine pic.twitter.com/LkSZ2i30Nc
— Marc D'Amico (@Marc_DAmico) November 15, 2017
Later in the first half, he tossed the poor mask to the ground, apparently hoping a hole would open up in the Barclays Center floor and swallow the thing up.
Hey Kyrie how do you feel about the mask? pic.twitter.com/LFrvvr7E6d
— John Karalis 🇬🇷🇺🇦 (@John_Karalis) November 15, 2017
Kyrie’s disdain for his newest accessory didn’t show up in the box score, though: He dropped a game-high 25 points on 8-of-20 shooting while adding five assists in Boston’s 13th straight win. And it turns out the clear mask wasn’t as bad as the black faceguard that many wanted him to wear.
“(Teammates and fans) were asking me whether I was going to wear the black mask,” Irving said after the game, via ESPN.com. “The difference with the black mask is that (teammates are) not getting the ball because I couldn’t see outside of my eyesight.”
But to be clear: The man still hates wearing his current mask, an experience he described as “having somewhat foggy blinders on.”
Kyrie is asked how his face feels. “It’s broken.”
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) November 15, 2017
Irving said he’ll have to wear the mask for a few more weeks, so his battle with the contraption is far from over.
