Stephen A. Smith says Kyrie Irving ‘WAS A NO-SHOW’ & offers VERDICT on ring chase | First Take

Stephen A. Smith says Kyrie Irving ‘WAS A NO-SHOW’ & offers VERDICT on ring chase | First Take

Stephen A do you feel like this was his last chance Kyrie Irvings at a ring I don’t think it was I think that Kyrie’s a superstar in this league and I I want to say this um very proud of Kyrie a lot of us should be very proud of Kyrie he’s overcome a lot um and I’m not going to sit up here today and rehash all of those things completely uncalled for and unnecessary it’s no reason to do that he overcame a lot and deserves all the praise he was receiving coming into this NBA Finals however strictly about basketball his performances in the three games in Boston was horrid Horrid for his standards he was a noshow and it was shocking to see him now at home in Dallas two games 28 points 50% shooting from the field 42% from three-point range three games on the rad Road in Boston 0 for three 14.3 points 34% shooting 18% from three and he’s now one and six in the postseason in postseason games in Boston since leaving the Celtics following the 2018 2019 season Boston got in his head and I’m not talking about the players I’m talking about the city I’m talking about the fans I’m talking about the Kyrie sucks chance I’m talking about all of that and the reason why I firmly believe it it’s not just because I’ve been covering basketball for so long it’s not just because I’ve seen how heated Boston could get whether it was Boston and the Lakers or Boston and Philadelphia with their rivalries back in the day I’m sitting up there when years later when Allan Iverson and the Philadelphia 76ers roll in Andrea for a game five in Boston and I’m sitting at the Baseline this is when Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce were together stuff like that and the threes were just raining down upon like just raining down upon me like oh one after another like good Lord have mercy it was it was bananas in there Boston that fan base is so rabid it is so special even Draymond Green admitted it got to him it affected him and that’s just as an opponent Kyrie isn’t just an opponent he’s a former member of the Celtics who sat up there grabbed a microphone in the offseason and said at the beginning training camp rather I’m here if I’ll be here if you’ll have me and then left in the middle of the night to join the brook the Brooklyn Nets they view him not just as an opponent they view him as a traitor he knows it and they treated him like that and the the the the secret here is Kyrie’s actually a very nice guy okay he don’t want be be seen like that he ain’t trying to be a pariah that’s not that’s not who he is that’s not what he’s about and that is how Boston rolled up on him and he looked like a dude that was a deer in headlights on the basketball court for Boston completely ill equipped to deal with the tsunami of Venom that they threw down upon him I’m not taking anything away from the holiday and white and brown and tat I understand how at leite Boston is defensively but we’ve seen the great Kyrie Irving figure stuff out throughout his career he’s a champion for God’s sakes but these three games in Boston he looked like just a role player it was that bad and that’s gonna be hard for him to live down he will because he’s too great not to but it’s going to be hard whenever he goes to Boston that’s going to always be remembered when I left Boston uh today I there’s two things in my head that were big what ifs in this series one what if Luca doesn’t fou out of game three because to four it’s a three-point game with four minutes to go who knows what happens second is what if it wasn’t the Celtics that the Mavericks were playing against now I’m not saying the Celtics would have you know they clearly dominated the Eastern Conference but what if it had been the Bucks what if it had been the Sixers what if to just to tweak Stephen A what if it had been the Knicks what would Kyrie have done in the finals cuz I covered the Western Conference Finals he crushed the Timberwolves he dominated the Timberwolves he was awesome in that series he didn’t and they and they were the number one defense in the NBA he yeah he didn’t come into this into this series on a slump that’s what I wonder because everything he accomplished this year that’s the one thing that he wasn’t able to overcome was was playing in Boston in terms of his aggression playing in attack mode getting downhill dropping his shoulder we didn’t see Kyrie in attack mode to me it looked like he was weighed down which when you Stephen A talk about Boston and the crowd to me like what do we know Kyrie to do to create to be light to float to float the ball up there’s an Airness about his game he has and there’s a quickness about his game he looked weighed down in terms of the effortless in terms of the flow in terms of the speed he just looked heavy in game five and I’m sure there’s a lot of heavy emotions for him that he’s battling and this is again a step in his journey but Boston just weighed him down I thought in Games 1 and two he looked a little frantic and it looked like it was too much for him but then in game five he looked way down unfortunate that he let the crowd essentially steal his moment well well well it is unfortunate and this is the thing the crowd has assisted the Boston Celtics in rattling quite a few players over history the greatest point guard in the history of the game Irvin Magic Johnson there was a game where he made three consec itive turnovers late in the fourth quarter to blow a championship that left him crying in the showers now obviously Dennis Johnson had a lot to do with that the late great Dennis Johnson got rested so and what he brought to the table as a defensive wizard in the NBA for years but that crowd in Boston is something special I was there 16 years ago right in the suite where you know doing NBA shoot around and C we were all hanging out there and Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers got annihilated by 38 okay they got destroyed we saw that so you see games where that happens this happened to Kyrie for the series like literally you saw well Kobe might play good one game but have a off game the next and then you know magic might do this one game and then not the next Kareem might do this one game but then not the next or whatever it was about the competition it wasn’t clearly and flagrantly about the audience with KY Irvin he was a completely different human being away from TD Bank Garden when he stepped inside TD Bank Garden it was very very bad and you would never expect to see him look that way games one and two rattled last night resigned like yo I I I I I I can’t do anything with this and you would never expect to see that that from him ever do you think I just I’m just thinking of him when he played with LeBron do you think if he had a different teammate they could have galvanized him or got his head on straight like if it was him and Lebron in that situation that might be the the most favorite question you’ve ever asked me in the history of your time on this show I love that question I love that question because let me tell you something I would love what if kg ke Garnett yeah was Kyrie’s teammate what if that was a what if Kobe was Kyrie’s teammate or for different reasons what if it was LeBron all over again because you see whereas Luca is great as well as LeBron of course two things that LeBron does exponentially better than Luca defense and number two not compromise Pace LeBron could go asow slow or as fast as you need him to up and down up that’s what you want to do let’s do it we need to slow it up here that’s fine you need me to be the playmaker that’s fine you me me to step back and be differential that’s fine if that were LeBron if that were LeBron in game three Kyrie would have had that ball he would have seen Kyrie in his bag he would have sensed that this Kyrie’s flowing right now here you go that’s what he would have done and he would have complimented him instead of compr Rising him so in that regard yes but I I love the question because a guy like kg would have been in am I ly he’d have been in Kyrie’s face mean get him out get him out of his head and listen he would this what Kyrie now he would Kyrie wouldn’t have spoke like this but kg would have been F he would have been like what you doing let them steal your he would have been like he would have in front of the Boston crowd on the court he’d been bumped all of them let’s go and he would have been telling the whole crowd to kick rocks not that he would do that to the Boston F cuz he loved them cuz that’s where he played but I’m talking about any of the opponent’s crowd that’s kg that brother if he if Kyrie had that dude as a teammate that mouth oh that might have been different might have been different I think the point you made too about someone else that could turn things around on the defensive end would have been helpful also because if Kyrie’s not hitting shots and Luca is not hitting shots and Kyrie’s in his head if Luca is not hitting shots how does he galvanize the team he’s not going to be able to make a defensive play to get the team going and the thing is this is also a testament to the Celtics team because what did you talk about with Drew holiday Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown could afford to start slow in that game because they had teammates around them that could pick up the slack they had teammates around them that could make plays Kyrie and Luca did not have that luxury in this series when you’re in your head you’re dead take it from someone who likes to overthink [Music]

On First Take, Stephen A. Smith, Brian Windhorst and Andraya Carter join Molly Qerim to talk through the Boston Celtics winning their league-record 18th NBA Title.
0:00 Kyrie Irving’s last chance at another ring?
2:00 How Kyrie was impacted
4:00 Windy’s verdict
5:00 Andraya thinks Kyrie was “weighed down”
7:40 Galvanizing a teammate

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