Kyrie Irving isn't a stranger to being heckled by a hostile crowd but he finally decided to let his feelings known to the home fans at TD Garden.
Celtics fans booed Irving mercilessly throughout Game 1 of Boston's first-round NBA playoff matchup with the Brooklyn Nets. Instead of ignoring the crowd, the former Celtics guard responded by putting up the middle finger to fans in the front row on multiple occasions throughout the game.
"Look, where I'm from, I'm used to all these antics and people being close nearby," Irving said after the game. "It's nothing new when I come into this building what it's going to be like, but it's the same energy they have for me, I'm going to have the same energy for them.
"And it's not every fan, I don't want to attack every fan, every Boston fan. When people start yelling 'p***y' or 'b****' and 'f*** you' and all this stuff, there's only but so much you take as a competitor. We're the ones expected to be docile and be humble, take a humble approach, f*** that, it's the playoffs. This is what it is."
Irving did not let the heckling impact his performance on the coach finishing with a team-high 39 points, albeit in a losing effort with Boston taking Game 1 115-114.
The 30-year-old was a member of the Celtics for two seasons and has had his fair share of hostile exchanges with fans since leaving for the Nets as a free agent in 2019. During Game 4 of the 2021 Eastern Conference quarterfinals, Irving was seen stomping on the Celtics logo at centre court and had a water bottle tossed at him as he was going to the locker room.
Irving said he isn't going to try and ignore the reaction from fans and instead he is going to embrace it and respond accordingly.
"I know what to expect in here," Irving said after Sunday's game. "And it's the same energy I'm giving back to them. It is what it is. I'm not really focused on it, it's fun, you know what I'm saying? Where I'm from I've dealt with so much, so coming in here you relish it as a competitor. This isn't my first time at TD Garden so what you guys saw, what you guys think is entertainment, or the fans think is entertainment, all is fair in competition.
"So if somebody's going to call me out on my name, I'm gonna look at them straight in the eye and see if they really 'bout it. Most of the time they're not."
Throughout his career, Shaquille O’Neal has received his fair share of heckling from the crowd. During a halftime conversation on the NBA on TNT panel, O'Neal was not too pleased with how Irving dealt with the Boston faithful.
“If the great Bill Russell went through it, I want to go through it also,” O’Neal said. “I don’t really want to hear all that. Certain cities, they don’t care what you say in the press conference. You know what’s going to happen in Game 2? They’ll be talking more smack up there in Boston. It happens to the best of us. You don’t think people said stuff to Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon?”
The Celtics and Nets meet for Game 2 in Boston on April 20.
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