What Bothered Kendrick Perkins About Kyrie Irving’s Season-Ending Remarks

Kendrick Perkins had no time for what Kyrie Irving had to say Monday night at Barclays Center.

Irving and the Nets’ 2021-22 season came to an end with a Game 4 loss to the Boston Celtics. The star point guard immediately started looking ahead to the future, vocalizing his long-term commitment to Brooklyn and wanting to move past the obstacles that hindered the Nets this season.

One of those hardships Irving identified after the Nets’ season-ending loss was consistent negative attention from the media. Perkins took issue with that gripe.

“You know the thing that bothers me the most? This is when I stopped listening,” Perkins said on NBC Sports Boston. “He always wants to come and attack and say, ‘Oh, the media is saying this and the media is saying that.’ Well, Kyrie, you’re giving us a reason to say something about you. Like you getting swept — that’s giving us a reason to actually talk about you and Kevin Durant. Y’all got swept. Y’all got swept. Like, he said a whole bunch of nothing.”

Perkins likely wasn’t surprised to see the Celtics finish off the Nets on Monday. The former Boston big man was all over Brooklyn after its losses in Games 2 and 3, harping on the notion that Durant, Irving and company got “punked” by the C’s.