BOSTON — Boston Celtics All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving has routinely pledged to be the most patient person in Boston’s locker room amid the team’s underwhelming 9-9 start to the 2018-19 season.
But on the heels of Wednesday’s sobering 117-109 wire-to-wire loss to the lowly New York Knicks, even Irving admitted the Celtics need to fix their attitude posthaste.
"We just can’t wait anymore, honestly,” said Irving. "From myself, everybody else as a collective, to our coaching staff, we just don’t have time to really be waiting to kind of see if guys are going to give that extra effort. Including myself, it’s just an accountability standpoint that we all have to have.
"I think that we’re making steps in the right direction. I just think that it’s tiring at this point, when we show flashes of brilliance and then we put ourselves in a deep hole and then we’re consistently coming back. We can’t play like that. I think we’re just showing signs of what we’re capable of but we just have to do it consistently.”
The Celtics dug themselves a 26-point hole against the Knicks on Wednesday and were booed multiple times inside TD Garden, including late in the first half. Boston eventually embarked on a furious fourth-quarter, long after many fans had already departed, and surged within a possession in the final minute, but Trey Burke helped the Knicks hold on.
Irving liked the resiliency his team showed but is adamant the Celtics can’t wait to be down 20 before they finally crank up their own intensity.
"There are some guys in this locker room that are very resilient. So they have that attitude of winners and, when you’re going down by that much, there’s really nothing to lose but playing hard and living with the results after that,” said Irving. "But we have to play hard from the jump. Teams come in here and they’re on the road and they feel really comfortable. Then we start paying attention to details and all the little things and, voila, we’re in the game.
"I think that, at this point, it’s just tiring. Like I said, there’s no more time to wait. It’s not that I’m pushing the panic button or anything like that, I just think that there’s no more time to wait for games to start off and then go down in a hole where even our home crowd has been antsy and guys are pressing and stuff like that. It’s a long game but I think there are some controllable things in the beginning of the game that we can fix.”
While Brad Stevens suggested the Celtics are facing a “myriad” of problems, Irving distilled Boston’s struggles to one digestible concern.
"Inconsistent. It’s really what it comes down to when you look at the games that we’ve lost,” said Irving. "And even in the games that we’ve won, I think that it’s just two tales of either halves, or quarters, where it’s made the difference in the game. I’ve been at worse records, though. I’ve had very worse records.”
Boston’s 9-9 record is nowhere close to where this team thought it might be at this point and Irving is trying to balance getting this ship righted and not overreacting to early struggles.
"It’s just a storm that we’re weathering right now,” said Irving. "Right now, in this game of basketball, it’s so fragile. You can be one of those teams that there can be something so subtle as a change and you can go on a streak, or you can continue to be in a funk for a while, it could be the subtle changes that you need to make or things that you need to do, things you need to focus on a lot more.”
And, almost like he was trying to reason with himself, Irving reaffirmed his typical stance that it can take time for teams to find themselves.
“It'lI hate to keep saying it takes time but, this game, it’s just so fragile,” said Irving. “You gotta do little things, you have to earn your wins in this league. In order to be considered a special team, you have to earn it, and no one is going to give it to us.
"The expectations everyone has on us means s--- at this point, excuse my language, but it doesn’t mean anything. Until we figure that out, we’ll be struggling. But I’m going to continue to push this team, I’m going to continue to lead the best I know how, as well as with Coach Stevens.”