Kyrie Irving says he's still sick about it. It's the play that ended Gordon Hayward's season, and the one for which Irving shoulders some of the blame.
Speaking on the Bill Simmons podcast, Irving detailed the play that seemed to torpedo the Celtics' season, only to end up galvanizing it -- the alley-oop that resulted in Hayward breaking his leg against the Cavaliers on opening night.
"I'm the one that threw the pass for the alley-oop, and I was just like holding on to that for a while," Irving said. "I'll take part of the responsibility because he wasn't really open — I saw D-Wade over there. He just came down wrong, and I was like, 'Ah, f.'"
Far from ending the team's season, the Celtics soon embarked on a 16-game winning streak without Hayward before reaching Game 7 of the Conference Finals without Irving.
We'll never know what the team would've looked like if everyone had stayed healthy and Irving had never thrown that pass.
"I just was pissed," Irving said. "I was pissed for our team and, more or less, for Gordon. He was just now getting to start a rhythm in preseason. It was just tough. I'm still sick about it. Because we had a really good training camp, like a really good training camp."
