BOSTON — Kyrie Irving didn't seem to enjoy his time in Boston. Not the city. Not the fans. Probably disliked Dunkin’, too. Two years in the Hub were enough to send Irving racing for the Amtrak to New York, off to form a potential superteam with the Celtics’ division rival.
Boston doesn’t seem to like Irving. At least not Celtics fans, anyway. To many Irving is the superstar who committed to the city in 2018 only to bail on it nine months later, blowing up a championship-level team along the way. The list of Boston sports villains is a long one. Irving is near the top of it.
Officially, it’s Boston vs. Brooklyn in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals. Unofficially, it’s Kyrie vs. Boston. Irving scored 39 points in Game 1. He made six of his 10 three-pointers. He handed out six assists, he picked off four passes and made all nine of his free throws. He also flipped off courtside fans (twice) and exchanged some colorful language with another. On Tuesday, the NBA dinged him $50,000 for it.
“Look, where I’m from, I’m used to all these antics and people being close nearby,” Irving said. “It’s nothing new when I come into this building, what it’s going to be like, but it’s the same energy they had for me, and I’m going to have the same energy for them.”
“And it’s not every fan, I don’t want to attack every fan, every Boston fan. When people start yelling ‘p---y’ or ‘b----’ and ‘f--- you’ and all this stuff, there’s only but so much you take as a competitor. We’re the ones expected to be docile and be humble, take a humble approach. F--- that, it’s the playoffs. This is what it is.”
The Irving-Boston feud is just … weird. Irving did nothing to Boston. Sabotaged the 2018–19 season? Come on. Irving’s attitude, particularly his dismissiveness of the team’s younger players, wasn’t useful, but he was just one of a long list of problems that plagued that snakebit team. Left as a free agent? Irving didn’t choose the Celtics—he got traded there. When his contract was up, he got a max deal to play for a team closer to home with one of his best friends, Kevin Durant, who happens to be one of the NBA’s top players. How many of you wouldn’t do the same?
“[The anger] is rooted in love,” Durant said Tuesday. “They once loved you. They once cheered for you and bought your merchandise and had life-altering experiences coming to games watching you play. So when that kind of gets ripped from them, from just something like a trade or demanding a trade or wanting to leave, it feels like a piece of them is gone, too.
“It’s an emotional attachment that they have to professional sports. And that’s a gift and curse of having a team in your city where you grew up. But it shows that people care and people have emotions and people really accept and admire who we are as individuals. Sometimes it gets a little dark and deep. But that’s just how the human brain works.”
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Irving, though, seems to relish the role of antagonist. He burned sage in the arena before his first game in Boston last season. He suggested he could hear racist comments before the Nets’ series against the Celtics last playoffs. After Brooklyn beat Boston in Game 4, Irving walked to center court and stomped on the Celtics logo.
“Embrace it,” Irving said of the energy he received in TD Garden on Sunday. “It’s the dark side. Embrace it.”
The Celtics weren’t interested in engaging in the Irving drama Tuesday. “Our focus is guarding him, stopping him,” Ime Udoka said. “We’re not worried about what’s going on with him and the fans.” Jaylen Brown, Irving’s ex-teammate, said he didn’t notice. “All my energy was on our team and what we got to do to win games,” Brown said. Deadpanned Grant Williams, “Kyrie is one of the best players in the league in terms of shot creation and ability.”
The Nets don’t appear concerned with Irving’s fan interactions, either. And why would they be? Irving was brilliant in Game 1. “I don’t think there’s any atmospheres that are really going to rattle him,” Brooklyn coach Steve Nash said. They are focused on finding easier opportunities for Durant, who went 9-of-24 in Game 1. On getting more from Seth Curry, who made one of his four threes. On keeping Andre Drummond, who played a foul-filled 17 minutes Sunday, on the floor.
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It will be hostile inside TD Garden on Wednesday. Fans will boo. They will heckle. And Irving, again, could respond. “You never know what may trigger you in the moment,” Durant said. The feud between Irving and Boston will continue. For the rest of this series. Probably longer.
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