These Celtics built to withstand loss of Kyrie Irving

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BOSTON – There’s no way to frame the loss of Kyrie Irving for the rest of the Boston Celtics’ season in any way other than it being a huge, huge setback.

A five-time All-Star, Irving’s play this season was a major key to Boston finishing with one of the top-two records in the Eastern Conference.

But if there was a team built to withstand the loss of a five-time All-Star and still find success – even in the playoffs – it is this Celtics team.

And the reason is pretty simple.

“The fact that our team has been doing it,” Danny Ainge, Boston’s president of basketball operations, told NBC Sports Boston.

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Irving, who will undergo another procedure on Saturday to address a possible infection in his left knee, will be out for at least four months.

On March 24, Irving had a tension wire removed from his left knee that had been placed there during the 2015 surgery he had to aid the healing process of his dislocated kneecap injury.

The tension wire was causing Irving some discomfort, so he underwent a “minimally invasive procedure” to remove it. But in removing it, pathology tests were performed on the tension wire and later determined that there was the “presence of bacterial infection.” To ensure that there’s no infection in the knee, he will have the screws removed.

He joins a group of Celtics out for the season that includes Gordon Hayward (dislocated left ankle) and Daniel Theis (torn meniscus, left knee). The Celtics are also without Marcus Smart (right thumb) who may be healthy enough to return sometime in the middle of May depending on whether the Celtics are still in the playoffs.

The Celtics have tried to focus on the players who are healthy enough to play, but there’s no getting around how daunting a task it has become for them to find success in the playoffs without Irving in the mix.

But as Ainge pointed out, it’s not like the Celtics don’t have experience playing without Irving.

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Boston has put together a 12-6 record this season in games missed by Irving, a clear sign that they know how to win without their best scorer available.

But the playoffs are a completely different animal in comparison to the regular season.

It’s one thing to rally the troops during the regular season when the opponents vary and you can game-plan around not having Irving for that particular night.

But in the playoffs when it’s just one team for at least four games, overcoming the absence of a player of Irving’s caliber is extremely difficult.

Still, you won’t find the Celtics or the man who put this group together feeling sorry for their current plight.

“Obviously we're not as talented as we have been, on paper,” Ainge said. “I feel like, just like our players, let's go, next challenge, let's find a way. It’s a fun time, it’s an opportunity that some guys would get that they wouldn’t get if we were 100 percent healthy. I’m anxious to see how they do. Looking forward to the playoffs.”

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