Kyrie Irving typically hasn’t been one to hold back his opinion.
That much has led to a rocky relationship between the Boston Celtics star point guard and local media regarding his contract, Anthony Davis hysteria or the Celtics’ inconsistency and inability to perform up to expectations.
So far, the Celtics have looked far from the projected favorite in the Eastern Conference, and that has never been truer than on Tuesday when Boston got its doors blown off by a Toronto Raptors team that outplayed the C’s in every facet. It was a 23-point loss that felt a lot worse than that and left Brad Stevens criticizing his team for taking shortcuts.
On top of that, the Raptors held Irving to seven points on 3-of-10 shooting in arguably his worst performance of the season.
Just days ago, Irving claimed no one could beat the Celtics would be fine in the playoffs because, well, they had him. On Tuesday, Irving had a different tone. In fact, he didn’t have much tone at all.
Irving’s postgame interview Tuesday was much, much different. After offering some input on the Celtics’ strategy and game plan, Irving got noticeably brief. The star point guard offered up little regarding the Celtics’ recent struggles.
Kyrie wasn’t too talkative with us tonight. On how to fix taking defensive shortcuts: “I don’t know. It’s up to Brad.”
On Marcus Smart’s diagnosis that the Celtics aren’t playing together: “I mean, that’s Marcus’s opinion. I respect it.”
Is it Kyrie’s opinion too? *Silence*
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) February 27, 2019
A member of the Celtics’ PR staff ended the media scrum after that.
Irving obviously was frustrated. Understandable. He was virtually invisible for most of the game in which his team was taken to the woodshed.
And it is not his job to give the media a good sound bite. But what kind of message does Irving send with his brevity? Certainly not a good one. The fact of the matter is that Irving is the leader of this Celtics team. How he performs, how he acts, and the messages he sends to his team and to the media affect the team.
He should have more to offer than 20 total words to answer five questions. He doesn’t have to, that’s his right, obviously.
He can’t go off on tangents about the internet one day and offer up nothing more than “I don’t know, it’s up to Brad,” after one of the worst losses of the season the next.
You can read Irving’s words, or lack thereof, any way you want.
At the end of the day, this Celtics team doesn’t come close to a title without Irving. But, even with him, how close are they really?
You’ll have plenty to talk about with NBA betting at Skybook.ag, through the regular season and into the playoffs.
