Brooklyn Nets superstar Kyrie Irving didn't buckle under the pressure of vitriol from embittered Boston fans inside a sold-out, raucous TD Garden on Sunday. He happened to score a team-high 39 points against the hometown Celtics in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series, and nearly half of those points came during a tense and dramatic fourth quarter.
But Irving's contributions weren't enough for Brooklyn to escape with the win. With less than 40 seconds remaining in the game, Boston scored four critical points, and Jayson Tatum made a game-winning layup as the buzzer sounded to lift the Celtics to a thrilling 115-114 victory. Of course, Irving didn't ignore the crowd noise. Cameras caught him flipping off fans mid-game, and responding to banter. After the loss, Irving told reporters that he reciprocated the energy.
"For a continuing narrative, this is it. I've never seen anything like it," longtime Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy explained to The DA Show on Monday. "You've got a player who played in Boston, who lied to the fans, who's called the racism card on the fans, who's beaten their ass in the playoffs. And now he's giving them the finger, mid-game, and then talking about it afterwards.
"This is another level of that. He's become the ultimate villain. And it shouldn't take away from the greatness of watching the game yesterday... But this thing was wildly entertaining, really reminded me of the [1980s] Celtics-Lakers days. Kendrick Perkins said it before the series -- he said, 'You've got a first-round series that's going to feel like the Finals.' And that did."
Boston, which owns a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, will play Game 2 on Wednesday (7:00 p.m. ET tip) at TD Garden. According to FiveThirtyEight projections, the Celtics currently have an 89-percent chance to advance to the East semifinals, an NBA-best 49-percent chance to make the NBA Finals, and a league-high 34-percent chance to win their first title since 2007-08.
The entire Celtics playoff conversation between Shaughnessy and DA can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow The DA Show on Twitter @DAonCBS and @CBSSportsRadio, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.