Kemba Walker’s NBA playoff showcase is a Kyrie Irving warning

https://nypost.com/2020/09/01/kemba-walkers-nba-playoff-showcase-is-a-kyrie-irving-warning/



Kemba Walker’s NBA playoff showcase is a Kyrie Irving warning



By Mike VaccaroSeptember 1, 2020 | 2:13pm


Mike Vaccaro


The thing to keep at the front of your mind, if you are a Nets fan, are the 20 games Kyrie Irving played this year. It was an all-too-brief sample, an all-too-fleeting taste, but those 20 games need to stay prominent because they remind you of all he can be, and all the Nets can be, especially once Kevin Durant joins the party.

It is smart to remember the next-to-last game in which he took the floor for Brooklyn this year, Jan. 31, a Friday night at Barclays Center. Three thousand miles away Kobe Bryant was honored at Staples Center by his team and by his city five days after his death; inside the house on Atlantic Avenue Irving paid his own personal tribute: 54 points, five assists, 19-for-23 from the field, 7-for-9 from 3.

For one of the few times in its history, Barclays was bonkers, all 17,732 people inside chanting his name every time he made a shot, every time he took it hard to the glass, every time he stood up on the bench, peeled off his warm-ups, ambled to the scorer’s table.

“I hit a few shots,” he said later, amid a roomful of teammates who were still practically awed into silence at what they’d seen. “I had to keep going, had to keep that Kobe mentality, that Mamba mentality, keep going.”

The thing to keep in the back of your mind, if you are a Nets fan – hidden beneath the detritus of all the disappointments of all the years going back to the ABA – is watching what Kemba Walker is doing for the Boston Celtics in the NBA’s bubble in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., listening to his teammates line up to praise not only Kemba himself but the experience of playing with Kemba.


A Celtics fan holds up a sign indicating he prefers Kemba Walker to Kyrie IrvingGetty Images


“I’ve never seen someone so good who’s first instinct is to be so unlselfish,” Jaylen Brown says.

“A great player who’s a better teammate is a treasure,” says Marcus Smart.

“Our true leader,” says Jayson Tatum.

And what is most important to ignore if you are a Nets fan, if you can, is just how efficiently the Celtics are humming in these playoffs, even without a key cog like Gordon Hayward, rolling over the Sixers and humbling the Raptors in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinals on Sunday.

Now, it is important to state here, because you surely see where this is going: not everything that went wrong last spring for the Celtics was Irving’s fault. He averaged 22.5 points and close to 8 assists in a first-round sweep of Indiana. Boston ran into a Milwaukee buzzsaw in the second round but Irving was still good for 20.4 points and 6.4 dimes a game.

But, then, perception doesn’t always adhere to statistics. The truth is, by the end, the Celtics were an unhappy bunch, disjoined, jarred by Irving’s declaration that he’d play elsewhere as soon as he could – and he was true to that pledge.

And there is this:


Kyrie IrvingGetty Images

The year before, with Irving injured, the Celtics made it to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals and would’ve certainly played in the Finals if not for an especially heroic effort from LeBron James in his last-hurrah push in Cleveland. Couple that with the way the Celtics look this year, in their first season After Kyrie, under the stable, guiding hand of Walker …

Well, look: that’s always been the odd appeal of Kyrie, right? You can get all kinds of results from that cocktail. It is a matter of record that LeBron would have one fewer ring, and that Cleveland would still be a town title-free since ’64 if not for Irving’s brilliance in 2016. That is inarguable. And that is the beacon for Brooklyn.

“Never forget,” says a league official who has worked with Irving, “that at his core Kyrie is as good at what he does as anyone alive right now when he’s healthy and when he’s right.”

He paused, because there’s always a pause.

“You just have to hope he’s right.”

He was right for most of those 20 games this year and as a Nets fan that is what you focus on, that’s what you hang your hat on, that’s what you envision when you begin to visualize the Kyrie/KD partnership in full bloom. You shuttle the other stuff – the injuries, the oddities, the times he too regularly shuffles lesser teammates under the wheels of whatever vehicle is nearby – aside. You have to.

And maybe you hide your eyes watching what the Celtics look like these days now that they’ve traded in Special K’s – Kyrie for Kemba – and hope that has nothing to do with you, and with next year, and what’s to come.


bob
MY NOTE:  This article highlights how teams sports are more than just stats, they include intangibles.  Some of those intangibles are seen on the court (see Smart, Marcus) and some are not.  One thing Danny is very good at is not getting snookered twice and he saw what Kyrie did to our locker room.  Appreciate Kemba. Appreciate him even when he's having bad shooting nights because of all the intangibles he has brought with him to Boston.


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Big fourth quarter for Kemba in game 2, and he , anti-intuitively, has been playing pretty solid D  compared to kyrie eleison, imo.

Aside from the fact that KI went back on his word which to Boston fans means that he lied, he also sabotaged the series against the Bucks last year.  

It seems he did not want to win.  He had already decided to leave and he did not want to win with us.  We had more than enough talent to beat the Bucks last year.

Remember this Irving refused to run the offense that Stevens asked for.  He just keep taking bad shot after bad shot.  Remember this after game 1 (2nd round) he went 4-18, 8-22, 7-22 and 6-21.  He refused to move the ball and he shot 5-27 from deep.

Basically KI is not a coachable player.  He is a self-absorbed me first player that betrayed his teammates, coaches, management, owners and fans in Boston.

KI has the best handle I have ever seen. Unfortunately at this level of play, having a guy who can score by navigating ridiculously difficult paths to the hoop and/or make insanely difficult shots is not the most efficient way to win a basketball game. It simply requires too much energy. Pass the ball and take high percentage high pay off shots.

Shamrock1000 wrote:KI has the best handle I have ever seen. Unfortunately at this level of play, having a guy who can score by navigating ridiculously difficult paths to the hoop and/or make insanely difficult shots is not the most efficient way to win a basketball game. It simply requires too much energy. Pass the ball and take high percentage high pay off shots.

KI has a knack for taking a simple shot and making it look more difficult than it needs to be. He's a head case

dboss wrote:

Shamrock1000 wrote:KI has the best handle I have ever seen. Unfortunately at this level of play, having a guy who can score by navigating ridiculously difficult paths to the hoop and/or make insanely difficult shots is not the most efficient way to win a basketball game. It simply requires too much energy. Pass the ball and take high percentage high pay off shots.

KI has a knack for taking a simple shot and making it look more difficult than it needs to be.  He's a head case

That's true - good observation.

Who?

bobheckler wrote:
MY NOTE:  This article highlights how teams sports are more than just stats, they include intangibles.  Some of those intangibles are seen on the court (see Smart, Marcus) and some are not.  One thing Danny is very good at is not getting snookered twice and he saw what Kyrie did to our locker room.  Appreciate Kemba. Appreciate him even when he's having bad shooting nights because of all the intangibles he has brought with him to Boston.

Agree 100%

bobc33 wrote:

jrleftfoot wrote:Big fourth quarter for Kemba in game 2, and he , anti-intuitively, has been playing pretty solid D  compRed to kyrie eleison, imo.[/quote

Lord have mercy!  Robert Gass did a nice version.

                                                                                                      I'll look for it

Ok. Kyrie played 20 games fpr the Nets this year. The writer does not note the Nets record during that span. They were losers right? Did not they do better as a team when Kyrie was not playing? Someone, correct me on this, please, if I am wrong.

Kyrie went out of his way to voice his opinion of not playing, like it’s his job or he has the means to effect racism or social injustice before the bubble even started. He choose not to play obviously, I think he’s a cancer and risk, because he has no heart, is all about himself and is injury prone.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Kyrie went out of his way to voice his opinion of not playing, like it’s his job or he has the means to effect racism or social injustice before the bubble even started. He choose not to play obviously, I think he’s a cancer and risk, because he has no heart, is all about himself and is injury prone.

Agree, and even worse, I think his effectiveness as a player is WAY over-rated. As was alluded to in earlier posts on this thread, KI is really good at making difficult shots (or as Dboss pointed out, making easy shots look difficult). While that ability can make him look great, it is not conducive to winning championships. It's just too much work for shots that are too low percentage. He made that big shot with Cleveland to win a championship, but let's be honest, the reason he was in the position to take (and make) that shot is because he was playing with the greatest player of his generation. Yeah, he made the shot, but it was one shot. Somehow that one shot gives him "spotlight" cred. I would argue that his performance in last year's round 2 tells us more about his ability to elevate his play in the clutch than that one shot.

My personal opinion about what took place with Kyrie in the playoffs last year is this: l. He had made up his mind he was going long before the playoffs. 2. He was shocked they got through Indiana. 3. There was no way he was going to put on a show and look like a fool walking away from Boston, so, against Milwaukee he just did not care. 4. He threw the series!!!!!!!. The fact that he would not give up that ball in the last game even though he was missing shots right and left was one of the most selfish acts by a player I have ever watched. I was ashamed he was a Boston Celtic and was overjoyed when he walked.