{"id":137302,"date":"2024-06-01T20:09:09","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T00:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clnsmedia.com\/?p=137302"},"modified":"2024-06-01T20:10:10","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T00:10:10","slug":"will-kyrie-irving-and-celtics-fans-feud-during-the-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clnsmedia.com\/?p=137302","title":{"rendered":"Will Kyrie Irving and Celtics Fans Feud During the Finals?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"6Clibw\">BOSTON, MA \u2014 It\u2019s hard to blame\u00a0Celtics\u00a0fans for going there. <strong>Kyrie Irving<\/strong> doesn\u2019t either.<\/p>\n<p id=\"SgjxDk\">As the\u00a0NBA Finals\u00a0loom \u2014 a matchup against a Mavericks franchise only loosely connected to Boston between the long-ago<strong> Rajon Rondo<\/strong> trade and <strong>Grant Williams\u2019<\/strong> departure last summer \u2014 everyone wants to talk about Irving. Will it define the Finals? The discourse, civil or otherwise, is as large as any question on the floor.<\/p>\n<p id=\"78EkhP\">Even the ever-focused <strong>Al Horford<\/strong> took a moment at Friday\u2019s practice to give the Boston crowd his seal of approval to be themselves regarding Irving.<\/p>\n<p id=\"DU8yjb\">\u201cOur fans, they care about the Celtics. They care about Boston,\u201d Horford told\u00a0<em>CLNS Media\/CelticsBlog<\/em>. \u201cWhen he left, it wasn\u2019t ideal for everyone here. So, I know the fans, it\u2019s the Finals, regardless of who\u2019s coming in and who\u2019s not, it\u2019s gonna be lively. It\u2019s gonna be exciting. It\u2019s gonna be loud. TD Garden\u2019s gonna be ready to go. It\u2019s those environments you want to play in &#8230; this is the big stage. I don\u2019t expect anything less from our fans. Our fans are gonna be who they are and that\u2019s what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"4XAMtr\">While both sides have embraced the environment ahead,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dLFtf1Pg9Fs\">Irving expressing to The Boston Globe\u2019s Gary Washburn and myself in March that Celtics fans have a right to boo him and it\u2019s part of the game<\/a>, Irving and his former Boston teammates have mostly moved on. After Boston fans chanted \u2018<em>F Kyrie\u2019<\/em>\u00a0while celebrating the East finals victory, the Celtics franchise has also moved well past Irving\u2019s departure. NBC Sports Boston\u2019s Drew Carter mentioned Dallas, as an organization, having more animosity toward <strong>Kristaps Porzingis<\/strong> as this point than Boston has toward Irving in his Garden Report appearance.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Carter: Mavericks Could Still be MAD at Kristaps Porzingis\" width=\"788\" height=\"443\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/i_uDdHaXbcU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p id=\"0c3GkG\">Part of the pain left by Irving (and Horford\u2019s) departure was Boston seemingly fading into near irrelevancy by 2021. Irving fanned the flames with the Lucky stomp and pointed comments toward the city and fans \u2014 but what hurt most was that the Celtics weren\u2019t close to his Nets. Now, they\u2019re significant favorites over Irving\u2019s Mavericks.<\/p>\n<p id=\"9ixZlC\">\u201cEvery time we got within close, it seemed like they would hit two threes or three threes and create separation, and get to the free throw line,\u201d Irving said after Boston beat Dallas 138-110 back in March. \u201cThey\u2019ve been showing it all season and for the past few seasons. They\u2019ve been showing how good of a team they are, together, and how well they play off each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"yjc0hc\">The loss left Irving with 10 straight losses to the Celtics dating back to his time with Brooklyn. Only 13 months earlier, he suffered one that shook his faith entirely with the\u00a0Nets. Boston won 139-96 and despite lengthy commentary post-game about how he\u2019d try to dig deep and figure out how to beat the Celtics, he demanded a trade the following day and never played another game for Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Ru5e9h\">A shaky transition followed that involved Dallas ducking the playoffs and doubts emerging in Irving and <strong>Luka Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s<\/strong> ability to play together. They figured it out and turned it into a tandem strong enough to power the Mavericks to the Finals as a No. 5 seed and rejuvenate Irving\u2019s career.<\/p>\n<p id=\"kcaOry\">As Irving walked off the court in Minnesota with the West championship trophy on Thursday, he reminisced on how difficult seven years away from the Finals were. Looking back at the winter, he already expressed being in a better place and leaving the past behind.<\/p>\n<p id=\"kgCEhE\">\u201cA lot of attention is on me in terms of the fandom. It\u2019s been six years. You gotta love it, but rightfully so,\u201d Irving said. \u201cFor my career record against them the last few games, I haven\u2019t won, so until I beat them, they have all the right to continue to boo. That\u2019s what makes the theatrics of sports and competitive sports fun. You gotta embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Kristaps Porzingis Returns to Celtics Practice but NO UPDATE on Finals Status | Garden Report\" width=\"788\" height=\"443\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1Rt_CvFLiUU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Whether and why each fan heckles Irving will be their choice, especially as the series and the narratives revolving around it evolve. It\u2019s easy to imagine an older version of Irving playing the tit-for-tat with the crowd, as he did in the infamous 2022 Game 1 where he shouted at fans in the hallway, gave the middle finger numerous times and said he\u2019d give the fans the same energy they gave him. That, too, was a long time ago now, and it\u2019s easier to imagine a series that, as Irving tunes boos out, becomes more about winning a championship.<\/p>\n<p id=\"5U1piJ\">Horford laid out that expectation on Friday, while <strong>Joe Mazzulla<\/strong> expressed that anyone can become the villain. Mazzulla didn\u2019t cross paths with Irving, arriving in 2019-20 after his departure, but for <strong>Jaylen Brown<\/strong> and <strong>Jayson Tatum<\/strong>, who entered the league shortly before Irving\u2019s arrival, they\u2019ve taken the high road in the years since. Tatum waved off boos in a 2022 game. Brown defended Irving during his suspension last season, and both players\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsportsboston.com\/nba\/boston-celtics\/jaylen-opens-up-about-how-relationship-with-kyrie-has-changed\/207721\/\">formed a closer bond<\/a>\u00a0since the rocky start to their relationship in Boston.<\/p>\n<p id=\"lE5q0k\">Something as mundane as Irving claiming credit for where Brown and Tatum stand today could be enough to inflame fans before. But Irving has watched and given them credit for how they handled the downturn following his departure, calls for their breakup and their rise to the top.<\/p>\n<p id=\"0zFsEs\">\u201cJB\u2019s doing wondrous things, JT\u2019s doing wondrous things,\u201d he said. \u201cBut as a competitor, I want to beat them every time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"MJbviU\">That\u2019s no longer different from any star on the other side of the Finals \u2014 and following his conciliatory March comments, something finally changed Celtics fans. Some fans expressed a similar desire to move on, and some hope emerged that this series won\u2019t become all about Kyrie.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Kyrie Irving: Celtics Fans Have the RIGHT to Boo Me | Mavericks Postgame Interview\" width=\"788\" height=\"443\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dLFtf1Pg9Fs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p id=\"6LC61K\">If all goes well, it could become about Brown and Tatum taking over the league.<\/p>\n<p id=\"4AYIn8\">\u201c(They) had a lot of external noise around them as a duo and how well they would work together in the future,\u201d Irving said. \u201cWho works well? Was it JB or JT? Just as a fan of the game, you see all that, you hear all that, but knowing them personally, I think that they\u2019re handling it extremely well. They\u2019re not afraid to get their hands dirty going after what they want, metaphorically speaking, out there as leaders. They\u2019re willing to put their bodies on the line. They\u2019re willing to play a lot of games to put their team in a better position for the season and you gotta give them credit for that. They didn\u2019t really need any motivation from me. When I first met them, they were hungry young players who wanted to be stars as soon as they got into the league. I think that\u2019s what separated them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BOSTON, MA \u2014 It\u2019s hard to blame\u00a0Celtics\u00a0fans for going there. Kyrie Irving doesn\u2019t either. As the\u00a0NBA Finals\u00a0loom \u2014 a matchup against a Mavericks franchise only loosely connected to Boston between the long-ago Rajon Rondo trade and Grant Williams\u2019 departure last summer \u2014 everyone wants to talk about Irving. Will it define the Finals? The discourse,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":254,"featured_media":137303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3537,48,3538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-home-featured-banner","category-nba","category-nba-featured-banner"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Will Kyrie Irving and Celtics Fans Feud During the Finals? - CLNS Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kyrie Irving left the Celtics five summers ago and the 2024 NBA Finals see him far removed from the Nets team he spurned Boston for.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clnsmedia.com\/?p=137302\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Will Kyrie Irving and Celtics Fans Feud During the Finals? 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