Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum made a clutch layup at the buzzer to lift his team to a 115-114 victory over the Brooklyn Nets in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series on Sunday afternoon. But it didn't take long for this iconic play to be pushed to the NBA's backburner, as the postgame conversations were centered around Kyrie Irving, and his ongoing beef with Boston fans.
Despite scoring a team-high 39 points in the loss, Irving couldn't fully ignore the vitriol from fans inside a raucous TD Garden. Cameras caught him flipping off fans mid-game, and responding to criticism from embittered Boston fans. Following the game, Irving addressed his interactions with the crowd, telling reporters that he only reciprocated the tense energy brought into the arena.
"My first instinct is to definitely defend the player. I love fans, passionate fans. But there's something where, just because you buy a ticket, doesn't give you the right to just say anything you want," Maggie Gray said during Maggie and Perloff on Monday. "But Kyrie was giving it right back to them, just as bad as he was getting it... There was bad language on both sides, the middle finger, there was everything in the stew here. I find it hard to pick a side in this one."
"Curse words, in general, are part of the theater of this thing," Andrew Perloff said. "If you took out the intensity of fans' hatred toward players, guess what? Sports are going to be less popular, and Kyrie Irving isn't getting $45M a year. This is all a part of pro sports... I didn't come away from this game saying this is awful for both sides. I felt that it brought out the best in Kyrie, basketball-wise, and fans got their money's worth... It was cool theater for the NBA."
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.
Maggie and Perloff's complete thoughts on Boston fans' beef with Irving can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow the Maggie and Perloff Show on Twitter @MaggieandPerl and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.