For the second straight season, the Eastern Conference playoffs will feature a first-round matchup between the Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics. Last year, Kyrie Irving played the role of hero, averaging 24.8 points and 6.4 rebounds in the five-game series win. And when he returned to TD Garden last month, the superstar guard dissed Celtics fans, comparing them to a "scorned girlfriend."
Boston can't be considered the underdog for this highly-anticipated rematch, though. The roles have reversed, as they're now the East's second-seed and Brooklyn is the seventh-seed. The Celtics are seeking redemption, hoping to become the first franchise in league history to capture an 18th championship. And they shouldn't lack any motivation, knowing that Irving is opposing them.
"I was always a big defender of Kyrie Irving until last season, when that whole playoff thing happened, and he decided to go the way he went with the fans," Celtics radio voice Sean Grande explained to After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Thursday. "And that just made a bad situation worse, when he decided to play the race card -- when nobody was talking about that at all. And he was doing it as a defense mechanism, to try to quell the crowd.
"And that only, obviously, made things much worse. And then stepping on the logo, I mean, what are you doing? Boston treated Kyrie Irving like a king when he was here... Kyrie's 'crime' wasn't leaving. It was promising he was going to stay, and then leaving... I think for that, he's become a basketball villain... And now, you're sort of frothing at the mouth, if you're a Celtics fan."
Irving scored a team-high 34 points on a sharp 12 of 15 shooting in Brooklyn's play-in tournament win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday. His superstar teammate, Kevin Durant, recorded a double-double of 25 points and 11 dimes. The Nets and Celtics will play Game 1 on Sunday at TD Garden, and according to FiveThirtyEight's projections, Boston has a 78-percent chance to reach the East semifinals and an NBA-best 31-percent chance to win the title.
The entire Celtics playoff conversation between Grande and Lawrence can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow After Hours With Amy Lawrence on Twitter @ALawRadio and @AfterHoursCBS, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.