For the second year in a row, the Celtics will open the postseason against Brooklyn, beginning their Eastern Conference first-round series Sunday at 3:30 PM ET. Though Boston won its last three regular-season meetings with Brooklyn by a combined score of 381-317, the Nets were only at full strength for one of those matchups with Kyrie Irving ineligible to play home games until recently due to New York’s vaccine mandate.
Boston has endured more than its fair share of messy breakups over the years, though it’s hard to think of a more hated former player in recent memory than Irving, an oft-injured locker-room nuisance who, for most of his Celtics tenure, had one foot out the door, actively plotting his escape to the hated Nets. Since joining forces with Kevin Durant in Brooklyn, Irving has openly antagonized his former team, rubbing salt in the wound with bizarre pre-game rituals, unprompted insults (he once compared Boston to a “scorned girlfriend”) and, in a blatant act of disrespect, stomping on the Celtics’ center-court logo.
Irving has not seemed particularly interested in making amends with Boston, going full Heisenberg in his transformation from quirky oddball to sinister archenemy. It’s high drama and an unusually compelling narrative for an opening-round playoff series. Lord knows the Nets, fueled by two of the game’s elite playmakers in Durant and Irving, are no ordinary seven-seed. But in unspooling Irving’s stylized revenge saga (think Kill Bill, but with gym shorts and 10-foot rims), might there be, hidden beneath the surface, a tinge of regret, adding a layer of nuance to one of basketball’s fiercest rivalries?
Irving's former teammate, Jayson Tatum, believes that to be the case, telling reporters Wednesday that, in their private conversations, the mercurial point guard has expressed remorse for some of his past behavior in Boston, acknowledging his role in breaking up a team that many believed could have competed for a championship.
That sentiment probably comes as little consolation to fans, many of them still bitter from Irving publicly announcing his desire to stay in Boston, only to leave the C’s high and dry in free agency. At this point, Irving may as well embrace his villain role, because his chance to redeem himself in the eyes of Celtics fans has come and gone.
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