Kyrie Irving has run out of chances to curb his shooting skid in the 2019 NBA playoffs.
The Boston Celtics were bounced from the postseason Wednesday night when they fell to the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 5 of their second-round series. The fact that Boston was eliminated by the Eastern Conference’s top-seeded team isn’t a shocker by any means, but what did come as a surprise was how poor Irving was on the offensive end.
After dropping 26 points on 12-for-21 shooting in the Celtics’ Game 1 win, Irving converted on just 30 percent of his shot attempts over the series’ final four games. The star point guard couldn’t have been more confident after Game 3 that he’d turn things around, but the misses continued to mount.
If you can’t remember the last time a Celtics player struggled so mightily from the floor in the playoffs, that certainly makes sense.
Unlike Irving’s, Jones’ tough stretch occurred in the midst of a Boston playoff run that ended with a championship. Following his four-game slide, the Hall of Famer shot 44 percent from the field over the final six games of the Celtics’ NBA Finals triumph against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Boston’s struggles against Milwaukee went well beyond Irving, but his undeniably were the most glaring. And with his future very much uncertain, those nightmarish performances could end up serving as his final games in a Celtics uniform.
