Pointing them on right path
Irving teaches young C’s how to win
NEW YORK — Kyrie Irving got across some pretty hard points after Saturday night’s loss in Orlando, essentially calling out some of his teammates for an improper approach to the game and just not getting what is required.
Before the club’s morning workout yesterday — one he sat out, along with the ensuing game against the Nets, with right quad tightness — he moved to clarify his comments, though he did not back away from any of what he had said.
It’s more of a case, he believes, of his having knowledge based on his three Finals runs with Cleveland. After the Celts had blown a 12-point lead against the Magic, he had talked about playing with the pressure of expectation, adding, “These are things I don’t think some of my teammates have faced every single day. It’s not easy to be great. So the things you’re doing, that you’ve done your entire career of being able to coast by in certain situations and you’ve gotten away with your youth and stuff like that, being on a championship ballclub, you can’t get away with that.”
On how well the Celtic children did last year, Irving said then, “We had nothing to lose, and everybody could play free and do whatever they wanted and nobody had any expectations.”
Yesterday in New York, his theme was similar, but he didn’t want it to come across as merely a criticism of the kids.
“I don’t want to put … like I’ve said, the responsibility goes all the way around,” Irving said before the session at Basketball City on the Lower East Side. “Part of that is learning but also teaching and then explaining what it actually means to come in and appreciate your job and have a goal in hand that is actually a championship. You know, you’ve never gone about it in your career, you’ve never done it, and now you come into a season where the expectations are higher than anything.
“And I’ve dealt with certain pressures like that, not as particularly ‘the guy,’ but I was on a team that there was a lot of pressure just every single day — a lot of media, a lot of attention — where it was just warranted every game.
“You want to come out and play well. And I just want to see the young guys do well, as well as all our guys, but it’s all going to take just common knowledge, basketball IQ and just knowing what matters throughout the game. So, like I said, it’s a full team responsibility, but I’m leading this thing, so I’ll take most of it.”
The key, as Irving has said on a number of occasions, is experience. But that can be a difficult subject to teach.
“Well, you can get the experience through games and being in certain situations and circumstances — people being out, people in, everybody’s healthy, plays run at the end of games, sets that we know that are going to be run against us defensively, offensively just knowing the flow of the game and knowing the opponent,” Irving said. “You know, I watch so much basketball when I leave here. I’m obsessed with it. So the opponents I’m playing against, I have our team film and I have my individual film that I watch, and I’m just studying guys so when I go out in the game it’s not anything that I’m confused on. Like, I’ve been playing it for a while. I feel like I was chosen to play basketball, so when I go home, I literally just obsess over basketball. That’s my job. And when I come in and play, it’s exciting to really get stops on guys and do the little things that matter.
“When you win, you want to taste it again. And I never want to come from a place where I don’t want to sound like or maybe feel like I don’t want to win a championship. Sometimes I may come off and say things — never to question my teammates in public like that ever again — but, you know, I just want to win so bad.”
Irving then poured out a little more.
“Like, I came from a place where I asked for a trade and IcomeinhereandIbelieve in this organization, and I want these young guys to be successful,” he said. “In order to do that, we’ve all got to be on the same page and have that mindset that a championship or nothing, and that can get the best of me at times.”