Right now, Kyrie Irving in a class by himself in being hated by Boston sports fans
Kyrie #Kyrie
There are two categories when we get into athletes who are hated by Boston sports fans.
Category No. 1 includes natural-born enemies of our teams. Guys such as Bill Laimbeer, Ulf Samuelsson, Manny Machado, Alex Rodriguez, LeBron James, and Peyton Manning. Easy targets, one and all.
The second group is the house of hombres who played or coached here in New England, eventually wore out their welcome, and left a trail of bad feelings when they moved to new destinations. This group would include Roger Clemens, Bill Parcells, Carl Crawford, David Price . . . and Kyrie Irving.
Kyrie, who spent two wild and unsatisfactory seasons in Boston, made the key plays in a fourth-quarter surge and scored 29 points in a 104-93 Game 1 Brooklyn playoff victory over the Celtics Saturday. Wearing green shoes, as if to taunt Boston again, Irving combined with superstar teammates Kevin Durant (32 points) and James Harden (21) to put the .500 Celtics into the fast lane for a quick exit from the 2021 NBA playoffs.
It didn’t go as Kyrie and friends planned in the first half. Irving and his Big Three Big Shots came out shooting blanks and trailed the Celtics by as many as 12. The Nets missed their first 10 3-pointers and Boston led, 53-47, at halftime. It was an underwhelming start for Brooklyn’s championship-driven team and Celtic fans loved it.
The good times didn’t last for Boston. Ever-annoying Kyrie and Friends were just too good. Brooklyn started the third with an 18-4 run and Irving effectively salted the game away with 7 points in a 10-2 late-game surge. Brooklyn led by 17 with two minutes remaining.
At this hour, Kyrie may be in a class by himself when it comes to generating bad feelings in Boston Sports Nation. In the spring of 2021, Kyrie is the sui generis, the capo di tutti capi of Boston bad apples. He’s in a class by himself. Celtics fans forever will blame him for promising he was going to re-sign with the Green Team at a gathering of season ticket-holders in 2018, then choking in the playoffs against the Bucks, and ultimately bailing on Boston and assembling a Super Team in Brooklyn.
There was a lot of talk about Kyrie-the-liar and Kyrie-the-super-diva in the days leading up to Boston’s first-round, David vs. Goliath playoff series with the Nets. Flat-earth Irving was scorned from Bangor to Hartford as Celtics fans prepared to be eliminated quickly by the tree-top trio.
Surprisingly, we stumbled across some Irving defenders in the days of Kyrie-is-the-devil analysis leading into Game 1.
Celtics assistant coach Jerome Allen told the Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach about Kyrie going out of his way to send shirts and sneakers to Allen’s youth program in Philadelphia in the summer of 2018.
“As a human being, I know people have takes on him from afar because of some of the things he says,’’ Allen offered. “But I know he has a giving spirit.’’
Regarding Irving’s turnabout after promising local fans he would re-sign with the Celtics, Allen said, “I don’t think Kyrie had any malicious intent to try to deceive or manipulate the situation. It’s just that sometimes those things happen.’’
Celtics basketball boss Danny Ainge was even more forgiving in an interview with Mark Murphy, telling the Herald scribe, “Are you saying that [Irving’s pledge] was all a big charade? I don’t think that’s true. I think that people change their minds. I don’t think he had some master plan for doing that. I don’t think it was pre-conceived . . . Life changes. I’m not going to get in and try to read his mind. I had talks with Kyrie, and I enjoyed those talks. I thought he shared a lot he didn’t have to share, and I respect him and I like him.’’
When it was learned that Irving bought a new home for the family of George Floyd, the New York Post’s Ian O’Connor reached out to Kyrie’s dad, Drederick Irving, who scored almost 2,000 points for coach Mike Jarvis back in the day at Boston University.
“I didn’t even know he did it,’’ said Drederick, adding, “Kyrie is probably the most misunderstood person in sports.’’
OK, a dad is never an objective observer, but even Kyrie haters are hard-pressed to find players or coaches who’ve openly ripped the guy.
We never got to know Irving while he was here. From a distance, it was apparent that he is aloof, stubborn, thinks he’s smarter than everybody, and did not get close to his teammates or coaches in Boston. We know that Jayson Tatum seemed to like Irving, while Jaylen Brown did not. Golly Gee Brad Stevens put up with a lot but has never trashed Irving. Still won’t.
So now we are watching Irving in a series in which the Celtics are whopping underdogs. He will be in the Boston Garden on Friday and again Sunday in Game 4 when he’ll finally face the wrath of a Garden sellout.
No “Welcome Back, Kyrie” video presentation is planned, but Celtics fans are sure to let Irving know what they think of him.