Danny Ainge Reacts To Kyrie Irving’s Comments About Coaching Staff

Danny Ainge Reacts To Kyrie Irving’s Comments About Coaching Staff

NESN by Lauren Campbell on Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:35PM

Danny Ainge has had no problem defending Kyrie Irving this season, and Thursday was no different.

The Boston Celtics president of basketball operations joined 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Toucher & Rich” for his weekly interview and was asked about his star point guard seemingly calling out head coach Brad Stevens after Boston’s loss to the Charlotte Hornets on March 23.

Ainge admitted what Irving said wasn’t “uncommon”, and chalked what he said up to the 26-year-old simply being frustrated.

“I did hear (Irving’s comments). It’s not that uncommon,” he said. “Guys get frustrated, and maybe that was the first thing that came to his mind is, ‘We should have done something different with Kemba (Walker).'”

Irving said postgame the C’s defense should have “trapped” Walker “like every other team does in the league.” And while many saw it as a dig at Stevens, Ainge had the bench boss’s back, as well, praising his game plan against Charlotte.

“Kemba hit three (3-pointers) in transition. We didn’t do a good job of stopping them in transition,” Ainge said. “We had defended Kemba pretty well this year after the first game of the season and up through that game, so for two and a half games, we had done a good job with the defensive plan that we had.

“The bottom line is, we scored five points in the final eight minutes and 20 seconds,” he added. “That’s not like our team at all. If we score 10 points (in that span), we win that game.”

Ainge concluded by saying he believes Irving’s comments were nothing but a player being frustrated.

But the Celtics will need to put any frustration behind them as they gear up for the end of the regular season and prep for what they hope is a lengthy postseason run.

112288

It is a quite a leap of logic to go take these statements:

‘We should have done something different with Kemba (Walker).'

and

. . . the C’s defense should have “trapped” Walker “like every other team does in the league.”

and conclude that those statements were a "dig" at the coach or were in anyway meant to throw Stevens under the bus.

I agree with Danny Ainge.  This has been an extremely frustrating season, to say the least.  The media goes around picking up pieces of pyrite and, in my opinion, they use them to support the multiple false narratives that circle this "sinking ship" like so many mindless sharks on a feeding frenzy.

It is my opinion that the sharks have no teeth.  It is just another example of how the media have resorted to attack journalism instead of just reporting facts.

Possibly a frustrating season, in part, because of such statements from the team's best player and "leader"??

This is the zero sum game some think the world exists in these days.

You can criticize a DECISION someone makes, and not be critical OF THE PERSON in general.

My best friend and I give each other a hard time, ALL DAY LONG. Why did you do this, good luck with that, bad idea buddy etc etc. At the end of it all, I have his back to the end of the earth. Criticizing a decision he makes is actually good and healthy for a relationship.

To Kyrie's point, I agree. The Celtics have lost many times this year due to them allowing one player to go off against them, with very little defensive adjustments.

Gary Harris had 48 in November
Kemba had 43 in November and 36 in March
Harden had 45 in December and 42 in March
D'Angelo Russell had 34 in January
Levine had 42 in February
Lou Williams 34 in March
Embiid had 37 in March
Aldridge had 48 just this week.

This doesnt even call out nights when Leonard had 31 / KD had 33 / Aldridge had 32 / Giannias had 32/ Aaron Gordon had 28 - which are all just 'regular' nights for good players.

You cannot allow the best player on the team you are playing to beat you over and over. That falls to the coach. Brad Stevens does a poor job of making adjustments in this regard. For that, 100% agree with Kyrie.

I said a month ago we need a really good defensive coordinator, Kyrie is right, but publicly he should not be throwing teammates and coaches under the bus so many times....

Scoring 5 points in 8 minutes not like this team? What is he smoking exactly? A lot of times last year we would have excruciatingly long scoring droughts.


KJ

My suggestion to Danny to fix this problem ........get into Feng Shui!

Feng shui also known as Chinese geomancy, is a pseudoscience originating from China, which claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals (Boy do we need team harmony) with their surrounding environment. Further, Polarity. Earth is a buffer, or an equilibrium achieved when the polarities cancel each other. While the goal of Chinese medicine is to balance yin and yang in the body, the goal of feng shui has been described as aligning a city, site (Training Center), building (TD Garden), or object with yin-yang force fields.


All I know is for the whole season we have been getting a lot of YANG but very little YIN! LOL

112288

I think this story is a week behind the news cycle.

It's on to playing the Pacers tonight.

It is easy to throw darts, after the fact. Danny is handling this the right way, what do we want? Our GM throwing our best player under the bus because he threw the coaches under the bus? What does all of this foolish accomplish? More anger. Get over it, move on to Indiana tonight and stop dwelling on what should/might have been. This rhetoric is getting tiring

RosalieTCeltics wrote:It is easy to throw darts, after the fact.  Danny is handling this the right way, what do we want? Our GM throwing our best player under the bus because he threw the coaches under the bus? What does all of this foolish accomplish? More anger.  Get over it, move on to Indiana tonight and stop dwelling on what should/might have been.  This rhetoric is getting tiring

Rosalie,

I don't believe anyone threw anyone else under a bus.  I do think that most of the Celtics players are already mad at how often they let another player go off on them like an all-star (see: mr. kleen's post to see how often it happens and who did it.  +1 ).  Kyrie just spoke it out loud.   I don't believe any Celtics player, coach or GM is getting angry or upset about any of this.  I do believe that the media applies spin to many stories and then the fans get their panties in a bunch, usually about nothing.  Us fans are an excitable bunch and we often take the media's offering to heart, hook line and sinker.

Otherwise, what would we talk about?  The last game and some of the good things we did?  Our favorite current player and what he did in the recent game that excited us?  A past Celtics player that has moved on and we noticed that he had a good game recently?  Something, anything, on a positive note?

Nah, we rather bitch and moan about the latest steaming pile of dung that is offered up to us by the media.  This is the same media that we constantly complain about, the Celtics insiders that are anything but fans of the very team that they get paid to report on.  We are sucker fish, one and all.  We seem to be our own worst enemy.

(sorry for the rant)

gyso

I do feel the press has been responsible for some of the negativity that surrounds Kyrie. Granted, he doesn't have "a way with words", ha ha. If
he did this a little more quietly maybe the writers wouldn't have anything to
write about. He is a young man with , shall I say it "issues" with alot of things. But his frustration is felt by all of us only we don't get paid!!!!!

Danny handled this the way a GM should handle it. The criticism of Brad, I feel, is not falling on deaf ears, but it also is being taken with a grain of salt. The ownership did not offer Brad an extension last year without total confidence in him. I look around at some of the other owners in the league and wonder why a quality talented star would want to play under their management. We are lucky to have Grousbeck, Pagliuca and the rest of them here.

Now I am the one ranting. My only thought has been that so much negativity has been printed all over the place about the Celtics that I have
become offended Take that as a loyalist who does not want to see the worst, only the best!!!

gyso wrote:

RosalieTCeltics wrote:It is easy to throw darts, after the fact.  Danny is handling this the right way, what do we want? Our GM throwing our best player under the bus because he threw the coaches under the bus? What does all of this foolish accomplish? More anger.  Get over it, move on to Indiana tonight and stop dwelling on what should/might have been.  This rhetoric is getting tiring

Rosalie,

I don't believe anyone threw anyone else under a bus.  I do think that most of the Celtics players are already mad at how often they let another player go off on them like an all-star (see: mr. kleen's post to see how often it happens and who did it.  +1 ).  Kyrie just spoke it out loud.   I don't believe any Celtics player, coach or GM is getting angry or upset about any of this.  I do believe that the media applies spin to many stories and then the fans get their panties in a bunch, usually about nothing.  Us fans are an excitable bunch and we often take the media's offering to heart, hook line and sinker.

Otherwise, what would we talk about?  The last game and some of the good things we did?  Our favorite current player and what he did in the recent game that excited us?  A past Celtics player that has moved on and we noticed that he had a good game recently?  Something, anything, on a positive note?

Nah, we rather bitch and moan about the latest steaming pile of dung that is offered up to us by the media.  This is the same media that we constantly complain about, the Celtics insiders that are anything but fans of the very team that they get paid to report on.  We are sucker fish, one and all.  We seem to be our own worst enemy.

(sorry for the rant)

gyso

gyso


Points well made  - and I will add - Just fans taking the opportunity, to add in print, their personal opinions based frequently on the rumors of the day - which generates plenty of interest - but many times reaches conclusions based on pure speculation.  

 swish[/quote]

RosalieTCeltics wrote:I do feel the  press has been responsible for some of the negativity that surrounds Kyrie.  Granted, he doesn't have "a way with words", ha ha.  If
he did this a little more quietly maybe the writers wouldn't have anything to
write about.  He is a young man with , shall I say it "issues" with alot of things. But his frustration is felt by all of us only we don't get paid!!!!!

Danny handled this the way a GM should handle it.  The criticism of Brad, I feel, is not falling on deaf ears, but it also is being taken with a grain of salt. The ownership did not offer Brad an extension last year without total confidence in him. I look around at some of the other owners in the league and wonder why a quality talented star would want to play under their management. We are lucky to have Grousbeck, Pagliuca and the rest of them here.

Now I am the one ranting.  My only thought has been that so much negativity has been printed all over the place about the Celtics that I have
become offended    Take that as a loyalist who does not want to see the worst, only the best!!!

Being a loyalist is understandable (especially based on the fabled history of the Celtics that you have been privileged to watch ) - but sometimes a little realism is the order of the day.

swish