Kyrie Irving travels with team, is questionable for Tuesday's game vs. Nets

The Celtics, slowly but surely, may be inching their way back to full strength (outside of Gordon Hayward) on the health front after a rough week. One day after Al Horford returned to the court, the team announced Monday that Kyrie Irving (facial fracture) made the trip with his teammates to New York for Tuesday's game against the Brooklyn Nets at the Barclays Center.

The Celtics officially list Irving as questionable for the contest, but there is clearly a strong chance he will be playing since this is the only game of the team's road trip. The All-Star was fitted for a facial mask over the weekend after taking an accidental elbow from Aron Baynes during Friday's win over the Hornets. Shams Charania of the Vertical reported over the weekend that Irving is expected to wear the mask for two weeks to protect the fracture.

Unlike some other players who have struggled adjusting to a protective mask, (see Jonas Jerebko last season), Irving has actually thrived in his stints as a masked man. The 25-year-old wore one for a month back in 2012 after breaking his jaw. He shot 48 percent from the floor and 40 percent from three-point range in that span over 19 games, averaging 24.5 points and 5.7 assists per contest. Irving also had a four-game stint with a mask at the start of the 2013-14 season (broken nose) and had similar success (23.5 points and 8.3 assists per game) there. No word yet on if the Celtics will be able to fit him with a green mask to match the all-black one he wore with the Cavs.



With Irving back potentially back in the lineup against Brooklyn, Marcus Smart would slide back to the bench unit. It would also put the Celtics back with a full roster (minus Hayward) for just the third time this year, giving Stevens an interesting choice on going with Aron Baynes or Marcus Morris up front with a complete set of weapons to surround them yet. With Timofey Mozgov manning center for the Nets, the guess here is that Baynes stays as the starting center for at least one more game for matchup purposes and as a way to keep a thriving Daniel Theis in-line for backup minutes at center (finding minutes for him and Baynes together off bench would be a challenge).