It was the first game for Boston Celtics guard Kyrie Irving back in Cleveland against the Cavaliers on Tuesday night. Irving spent the first six years of his career in Cleveland before being traded to the Celtics over the summer.
Of course, there was no love lost between the two teams nor between Cavaliers fans and Irving. Boston won the opening tip which Irving gathered, prompting a round of boos from the audience at The Q.
Perhaps more interesting was that the Cavaliers had a tribute video lined up for Irving but decided not to run it.
According to multiple reports, the video was set to run during a floating point in the game, but the operations folks in Cleveland never found the right time.
Another report from Cleveland.com has said that the aforementioned video had set off a few Cavaliers players.
Via Cleveland.com:
According to team spokesman Tad Carper, multiple Cavs officials, including majority owner Dan Gilbert, chose not to show the video because “we were expecting to run it at a floating opportunity based on the right moment, and we felt that moment never presented itself.”
...
Carper said the decision to cancel the video was not “directly” tied to the gruesome ankle injury to Celtics guard Gordon Hayward with 6:50 left in the first quarter, either.
A source with direct knowledge of Cavs’ players thinking told cleveland.com that several inside the Cleveland locker room were upset Monday upon hearing that a video was planned.
The video would have upset some inside the Cleveland locker room? I wonder which ones.