I’m sure you vividly remember where you were the moment Gordon Hayward’s season ended in the blink of an eye on national television in the league’s season opener. Most of us, in the moment, dropped our heads and kissed a great season goodbye. Five minutes into the season and so many of us were already looking towards the Fall of 2018. Meanwhile, Kyrie and his teammates had other, unprecedented plans.
Flash forward to mid-January and the Celtics have a 34-10 record. I mean, just think about that. An entirely brand-new Boston Celtics team down arguably their most talented player have only lost ten games at the halfway point. There’s many thanks we can give to many different people and factors. We can most certainly thank Brad Stevens for gladly being at the helm of it all from the very beginning. You can thank Danny Ainge for providing the team with the depth that it has, fueling them to such an incredible start. You can thank Jayson Tatum for being the best teenager to ever play for the Celtics. You can also thank Kyrie Irving for stepping up the moment Hayward hit the ground in Cleveland. To me, that trumps a lot of factors that have went into the eye-opening first semester of the New Look Celtics.
I’ve said for a while now, the Celtics are must-see television. A gigantic reason for that being is Kyrie. All of us undoubtedly questioned both his leadership abilities and overall dedication to basketball away from LeBron. Right away, he put those concerns to bed for good, it seems, and on both ends.
We’re all witnesses of what he can do on offense, regularly propelling his young team to nail-biting wins with 30-point games and drilling clutch threes in the waning minutes in said games. Irving’s scoring efficiency is up from last season, as is his passing efficiency. This speaks wonders to the fact that his best years are only ahead of him, despite making a name for himself in Cleveland for the past few years and becoming a Finals hero. There’s always been room for growth for Kyrie as a player, and in my opinion, all he needed was correct coaching. Insert: Brad Stevens, the Bill Belichick of basketball.
Not only are Kyrie’s field goal percentage (48.8) and true shooting percentage (59.6) up from last season, but they’re the best of his entire career. Coming into his first season with the Celtics, he was playing the best ball of his career; on both ends, in fact. Somehow, he’s only getting better. In Cleveland, he was obviously LeBron’s wingman on and off the court.
LeBron restricted Kyrie from bringing out the best in himself as a player and now that he’s in a space where he is The Guy, we’re only seeing the beginning of what Irving is capable of.
Most notably, to me, Kyrie is becoming more and more of a distributor. I certainly worried about how much of a ball hog he would be, but at the moment, that’s the least of my worries. Kyrie consistently involving his four other teammates are crucial to him cementing himself as a leader, which I think will come later on when Hayward is back on the court and playing like himself, whenever that may be. Right now, Horford is THE passer, which is insane to think, as he’s a center, after all. Although, Kyrie is getting much better about passing, himself. Everyone on this Celtics team does what he needs to do to win the game, and although he’s probably still getting accustomed to it, Kyrie is slowly improving as such a passer.
Speaking of Horford, he’s played a pivotal role in Kyrie’s success as the best passing big man in the NBA, hands down. He, among others, of course, allow Kyrie to do what he does best: create a high-percentage shot for himself. Few others in the league have the ability to do this. Add it all up, that, thus, makes his teammates around him on the court better. He does things others on the court can’t do – both his own teammates and the opposition. Not to mention, he isn’t afraid to give the game what it needs, for lack of a better phrase. If he needs to hand the ball off to someone, he’ll do that without a second thought. If he needs to take a shot right then and there, he will. If he needs to take a seat on the bench for a few minutes, he’ll do that, unphased. All of that is what sets him apart from others in the NBA.
People will still find a way to trash Irving for his defense. Nonetheless, he’s actually putting up relatively interesting defensive numbers. The Celtics own a 101.9 collective defensive rating while Kyrie owns a 104 defensive rating for the season. As weird as it is to say, Kyrie’s defense kind of sets the tone for how the Celtics as a whole play defense. His defense has lapsed from time to time throughout the season, and that’s certainly been showcased. When the Celtics had the best defensive rating in all of basketball, Kyrie’s defensive numbers soared. When the Celtics hit a wall on defense, Kyrie’s numbers took a fall, as well.
In games in which the Celtics have won with defense, Kyrie deserves much credit both numbers-wise and effort-wise. I’m sure it’s been no small task for Kyrie to transform himself on both ends of the court, despite how successful he’s been in doing so. His increased effort on defense has helped lead Boston to success overall and on individual, nightly basises.
As all of us are aware, as is Kyrie, for him to officially be called a leader, there’s got to be consistency from him on both ends of the court. He still has a ways to go, but I’m confident in saying that he’s already done much more than we could have expected, especially defensively. This was going to be a weird season the moment Hayward went down no matter what, but knowing that Kyrie has taken advantage of every possible opportunity that’s been presented to him to help the team before he helps himself is a great thing. If he even remotely keeps up what he’s been doing both on and off the court, expect great things to only continue.
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