The Kyrie Irving era with the Boston Celtics is off to a rocky start as the C’s are 0-2 heading into a road game against suddenly legit Philadelphia 76ers Friday night.
Irving has been far from great for the Celtics so far, as he’s shot 15-42 from the floor through two games.
Irving and the Celtics look confused often on offense and at one point in the fourth quarter in Wednesday night’s loss to Milwaukee, C’s head coach Brad Stevens visibly showed his frustration with the flow of the offense when Irving was pounding the basketball. The typically calm coach violently threw himself into his seat on the bench, shaking his head.
After the game, Stevens told his players that they need to be more professional and that they need to “learn the plays.”
“We messed up on a lot of plays,” said Terry Rozier of Wednesday night’s loss. “That can’t happen. Like [Stevens] said, we’re professionals and we need to learn the plays, or we won’t play.”
Irving is the floor general of the Celtics now, and it’s obvious that he is not yet comfortable with Stevens’ playbook.
Irving left the floor for a good 10 minutes in Wednesday night’s loss toward the end of the first quarter and early in the second quarter. It wasn’t clear why Irving left the bench, but he was inserted into the lineup as soon as he returned and played 39 total minutes in the game so it’s highly unlikely he was sent back to the locker room due to some sort of dispute with Stevens.
For what it’s worth, Irving showed up 45 minutes late for a meeting with Stevens in training camp due to car trouble.
“I had no idea that my engine got changed,” Irving said in late September. “So I put regular gas in the Jeep and it stalled out. It stalled out right on the corner of Beaver and Forest, right in front of Bentley University. And I’m standing there and our equipment guy JJ came and picked me up. So I was like 45 minutes late to a meeting with Brad. That shows you how much time I was out there for.”
