Of all the players returning to the Celtics lineup this fall, Kyrie Irving seemingly had the fewest question marks entering the regular season. The All-Star spoke about feeling healthier than ever during training camp in the wake of his knee surgeries and had reportedly been tearing it up in 5-on-5 pickup all fall long after getting fully cleared for contact. He delivered two strong performances in his preseason tuneups, setting the stage for what was expected to be a serious boost to the Celtics offense this week as the regular season kicked off.
Those positive vibes have failed to carry over though in two of his first three games this week, as Irving has sandwiched a couple of dud performances in between a 21-point outing in Toronto on Friday night. The ugly numbers speak for themselves so far.
He's hitting just 34 percent of his shots from the field and 14 percent from 3-point range thus far, alarming totals given his shot volume (16.7 attempts per game) has remained the highest on the team during those stretches. On Saturday night against the Knicks, he shot 5-of-16 from the field in the midst of a 103-101 win.
Now, there is no doubt that Irving is in a funk and his offense returning to form isn't a serious concern over the long haul. This is one of the best shooters in the NBA we are talking about, who managed to shoot 40.8 percent from deep last year while battling knee pain all year long. When he's right, there are very fewer better pure shooters in the league.
Still, in the wake of such a lengthy absence, it's fair to wonder what Brad Stevens can expect from Irving on a nightly basis over the coming weeks. Irving missed several months of action and while his re-adjustment period probably won't be as long as Gordon Hayward's, expecting him to be near full strength right away is a bit of a reach.
Right now, it's clear that the Celtics simply aren't good enough to overcome negative offensive performances from Irving on a regular basis. He's had a team-worst net rating over the first three games in large part due to his defensive lapses combined with his cold shooting.
The defensive woes are part of the package with Irving but he usually plays well enough on the offensive end to make up for them. That version of the point guard hasn't been around much this week. Instead, there's been a steady diet of missed jumpers of the contested and uncontested variety.
The positive news for Irving was that he made some progress on this front late in the 103-101 win over the Knicks with a simple formula that he should stick to more going forward: Attacking the basket. All five of his field goal makes on Saturday night came inside the paint, while a number of his assists came courtesy of his moves around the rim.
Instead of working his game around the perimeter, Stevens opted to use Irving in the post repeatedly in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter, allowing the All-Star to create for himself and others around the bucket on plays like this.
Kyrie feeds Al for the easy bucket ? pic.twitter.com/Nnav2OyEK9
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 21, 2018
Kyrie doing Kyrie things! pic.twitter.com/ejq43inxPD
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 21, 2018