Irving: ‘I’m in’ tonight
But must be smart going forward
MINNEAPOLIS — Kyrie Irving went through, by Brad Stevens’ estimation, about three-quarters of the Celtics workout at Target Center yesterday.
After the All-Star point guard missed Monday’s win in Chicago with soreness in his problematic left knee, the coach said there was still some question as to whether he’d play tonight against the Timberwolves.
Then Irving cleared the matter up.
“I’m in. I’m in for (tonight),” he said, adding that he felt good during practice.
One of the more difficult aspects of deciding whether to go is to temper the voice in his own head. While Irving also said the Celts have been playing with sort of a chip on their shoulder since Gordon Hayward’s injury in the season opener, he admits he has to check himself and his competitiveness as he maintains the appendage, the kneecap which he fractured in the 2015 Finals.
“Yeah, that’s a big part,” he said. “I could be my own worst enemy in terms of going out there and wanting to compete. I love this game so much. I study it so much.
“You’ve just got to be realistic, just coming to grips with how much basketball I’ve played and then also being smart in terms of what example I actually lead by, going out and trying to get the pace going with the young guys during walkthrough, during drills in practice.
“You’ve just got to be aware of it, that’s all.”
With 17 games left, the Celtics will be looking to get their rotation right for the playoffs. That may entail resting a player here or there.
“That’d probably be a fine, right?” said Irving when asked about it.
The new league rule pertains only to sitting healthy players for nationally televised games — the case for the C’s and Timberwolves tonight — resting multiple healthy players for the same game or resting healthy play- ers on the road.
“I don’t necessarily want to (sit out),” Irving said. “But whatever our medical staff as well as my strength and con- ditioning coach, whatever we come up with, I think would probably be best for the group and for myself.”
There may be less need for Stevens to go the rest route, in that he’s been keeping a rein on playing time all season. While Giannis Antetokounmpo leads the NBA at 37.3 minutes per game, you have to go all the way down to No.46 to find the first Celtic — Irving at 32.5. Al Horford is 59th at 31.6 and Jaylen Brown is 69th at 31.0
“We’ve kept an eye on that stuff all year,” said Stevens. “We haven’t been in that situation very often where we’ve chosen to do rest. We had that stretch in December where we rested Al, but everything else has kind of happened organically with guys being dinged up or whatever the case may be.
“We’ll probably be in the situation where we continue to have those discussions, but right now the way our schedule’s spaced out, I feel pretty good about it. As we get more condensed toward the end of the month, maybe you’ll see a little bit more of that.”
The Celtics would obviously still like to finish the regular season strong, and there is that top seed prize to be chased. But Irving said another factor has made this an interesting year.
“I would say it’s pretty unique,” he said. “I think that probably from the outside expectations it makes it pretty unique, because obviously losing one of our primary pieces in Gordon, I don’t think anyone knew what the landscape was actually going to look like going forward. And I think that it was our job to kind of fill that void as best we can, and it afforded a lot of opportunities for our young guys to play significant minutes as well as roles that I don’t think they necessarily envisioned going into the season.
“Gordon’s a huge piece, and when we lost him, I think all hell broke loose a little bit. Just like, ‘What are they going to look like?’ And then I think a lot of guys took that personal and wanted to come out and prove something not only to the rest of the league but to themselves that they’re capable of doing it. And it only positions us even greater for the future.”
Asked if he took it personally, Irving thought a moment and said, “I mean, yeah. Losing Gordon was just a few more eyes on me that I had to be a lot more aware of, as well as one of our leaders going down. It’s tough, because it’s an adjustment. Coming into a new environment, and you’re kind of expecting that this is going to be the team, and then one big piece goes down and you have to figure it out from there.
“But I think that Brad’s done a great job of leading our group and all of us just figuring out from a mental standpoint how we want to approach every game and bringing the young guys along, not necessarily using their youth as an excuse for why mistakes happen out on the floor, just doing a great job of teaching one another and gaining knowledge through experience.”