Kyrie Irving Sure Sounds Like A Guy Who Is Starting To Hate His Teammates

OK, we have a lot to digest here after another horrific loss to a bad team by the Celtics. This one, to the lowly Orlando Magic, does not come with the same “well they were on a B2B with travel”, like the Heat loss did. This was about as pathetic as they come, and I’ll of course have a full blog on that tomorrow, but we’re going to focus on what happened after the game. The root of his frustration, much like the rest of us, is obviously how the game ended. If you hadn’t seen it, this was the Celtics final play as they were down 2 with like three seconds left

You can see almost instantly, this was not what Kyrie wanted from Hayward. I mean I can’t blame him, he’s their best offensive player and I feel like you have to live or die with whatever happens once Kyrie touches the ball whether he makes it or not. It’s not to say that Tatum’s look was awful, but again, this is why you have Kyrie. He’s the clutch shot maker on this team, and right away you could see his frustration. What might have happened if Hayward got the ball to Horford we’ll never know, but that’s just half the story.

Postgame, we got this little nugget

Which brings us to his postgame interview

Let me save you the time trying to figure out who he’s talking about. He’s talking about Jaylen and Terry, no doubt. While Jaylen at least gave a little on the offensive end, it was another brutal all around performance from him, and then Terry, well Terry had one of his worst games of the season which is saying something. A total of 17 minutes, 0-5 from the field, a team worst -20, it was a complete and utter disaster. He wasn’t facilitating, his shot selection was terrible, and his stretch AGAIN in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter was a huge reason why the Celtics lost another game to a bad team in almost the exact same fashion as Miami.

You listen to those quotes and it’s hard to find something to disagree with. Kyrie’s been there, he knows what it takes and he knows when he isn’t seeing it. We all know that consistency has been the biggest issue with this team all year, and you can look no further than the young guys on the second unit. They have their moments, they are up and down, but they are not consistent, something that was not an issue last year. Is that roles? Is that because teams are more geared to stop them? Who the hell knows, but the reality of the situation is they need the leaders on this team and Brad to fix it. If they won’t Danny will.

The other side of this whole ordeal is for a guy who technically hasn’t signed the dotted line to stay with this franchise for the foreseeable future, this certainly is not ideal. At what point do you have to start to worry that Kyrie decides this shit isn’t worth it? That even if there is an unknown out there with a different city, that maybe these young pieces will never get it. That’s terrifying considering Kyrie is basically the centerpiece of this entire rebuild. He became that when the trade happened, so now seeing stuff like this only allows doubt to creep in, and that’s not something we can have right now.

What I liked, is that he took some responsibility. Even if he doesn’t believe it, and frankly he’s been one of the most consistent players all year, played the best basketball of his career on both ends, at least he said the words. At least this wasn’t a blame everyone and say it’s not your problem. As a leader, that’s what you want.

At the end of the day, it’s a bad loss that has no excuse. Had Tatum’s shot fallen, or had Kyrie found a way to get the ball maybe things turn out differently, but as it stands right this second, it sure sounds like Kyrie is starting to reach the end of his rope with some of these young pieces and you bet your ass that’s going to keep me up tonight.