Irving on fans in Hayward's return: “If they boo, great. If they don't, great.”

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SALT LAKE CITY – This will be Jae Crowder’s 475th NBA game, with many that fall under the “can’t ever forget that one” umbrella.

Among them?

The season opener in 2017 when he was a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a game that the Cavs won over Crowder's former team, the Boston Celtics.

That’s not why he remembers it so clearly.

It was the night that, just five minutes into the contest, Gordon Hayward went down with a season-ending left ankle injury with Crowder among the other nine players in the game at that time who were in shock and disbelief at what just happened.

The two will see each other again tonight with Hayward making his long-awaited return to face the Jazz, the team he spent his first seven NBA seasons playing for.

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And while it’s too soon to say who in the building will be eager to see Hayward back on the floor, you can count Crowder among them, especially considering how far Hayward has had to come in order to play again.

Crowder remembers the night Hayward went down vividly.

“Took the whole air out of the building,” Crowder recalled when asked about the incident. “I remember guys looking at each other, both teams, crazy, puzzled face. You just feel for him at that time. Nobody probably went through that situation, that type of injury. You don’t know how to react to him. You just feel for him. It was a sad moment to see him carted off the court.”

While sympathetic and compassionate about Hayward’s season-ending injury, Crowder knows the Jazz have to brush aside those sentimental feelings once the game starts with a focus on picking up where they left off on Wednesday when they beat Dallas, which snapped a four-game losing skid.

“That’s it; that’s what we’ve been talking about,” Crowder said. “The focus is on us. We’re trying to build off of what we did (against Dallas). It’s early in the season now; we’re trying to build our habits and play the right way. The game is the game. We can’t get caught up in what TV talks about, what you guys talk about, no disrespect. We have to focus on ourselves, focus on what we want to get accomplished with our unit, with our team. We can’t let the outside noise distract us from what’s at hand. We have to figure out a way and give it our best shot.”

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Boston’s Kyrie Irving, who told reporters earlier that he would not be with the team for tonight’s game in order to attend a memorial for his grandfather, knows a thing or two about facing a former team.

The former Cleveland Cavalier understands that there’s plenty of talk leading up to that first encounter, but it ultimately comes back to one thing – playing the game.

So, what’s his advice for Hayward?

“Just try not to get too caught up into what the outside (has) going on,” Irving told reporters. “It really doesn’t matter; it really does not matter, at all. I know the love and the support he garnered there. Gordon’s a great person. But don’t allow competition and basketball to be influenced by everybody else’s opinion and criticism and all that other stuff. If they boo him, great. If they don’t great. It doesn’t matter at all; at all. It’s just basketball. He gave seven years of his career trying to be the best he could in Utah. He made a decision in his career for his life and his family to be better and I’ll leave it at that.”

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