The lessons Kyrie Irving learned in overcoming a daunting NBA playoff deficit probably don’t apply in this case.
The Boston Celtics point guard declined The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach’s invitation to compare his team’s current playoff predicament against the Milwaukee Bucks to that of the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, who famously came back from a 3-1 hole to beat the Golden State Warriors in seven games in that year’s NBA Finals. The Cavs were the most recent of the 11 teams in NBA playoff history who have overturned a 3-1 lead to win their respective series.
The Celtics’ backs will be against the wall when they visit the Bucks on Wednesday night in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series, but Irving, who was a key player on that triumphant Cavs team, believes too many factors are different to accurately compare this Boston team to that Cleveland squad.
“It’s hard to make any comparisons at this stage of anything,” Irving told reporters, per Himmelsbach. “It’s really hard because you just have an appreciation of where you were at that time and the amount of experience that was garnered throughout the series and throughout the playoffs.”
Irving didn’t have to say it, but perhaps the absence of LeBron James from the Celtics roster explains why comparing the Celtics’ and Cavs’ playoff holes are all but pointless.
Nevertheless, history isn’t on the Celtics’ side ahead of their do-or-die road game.
Even the most hopeful of Celtics fans will cringe at those numbers. Irving just might have felt the same way when asked how his past experience will inform his next game.
