After another loss, Kyrie Irving strikes new leadership tone, will it help?

Kyrie Irving (sore quad) did not play on Monday night but that did not stop the All-Star point guard from speaking to his teammates in the wake of a third straight defeat. For the first time in a while, it appears Irving struck an upbeat tone after a loss.

“After the game, Kyrie came in and talk to us about it,” Brad Wanamaker told reporters. “It was a positive message. We want to do what we did in the last minutes from the jump.”

Amid a tumultuous road trip for the Celtics, who dropped their third-straight game to the Nets 109-102 on Monday night, Irving’s absence loomed large on the court. The Celtics obviously needed him and Marcus Smart (illness) badly as they were torched for 44 third-quarter points by a disciplined Nets team that took advantage of Boston’s weaknesses throughout the ugly frame by playing zone and attacking Boston's defense in the pick-and-roll.

While Boston’s own struggles right now are a major concern on the floor, the more intriguing issue may very well be behind the scenes with this group.

On Thursday, we saw Marcus Morris shove Jaylen Brown in the team’s huddle. On Saturday, Irving showed public frustration (with his hand motions) Gordon Hayward after failing to get the ball at the end of the Magic game. He also publicly called out the “young guys” on the roster after a woeful performance by the bench unit in the defeat.

Irving’s postgame comments all year long have been dripping with a sense of entitlement, at times chiding the younger pieces on this roster for the need to sacrifice for the team. The sentiment is understandable and Irving, to his credit, is buying into that mentality with his play on most nights.

However, the critical discourse has gotten repetitive for a team that is underachieving for a laundry list of reasons, not all of which involve the young guys during every loss. Irving took the criticism to a higher level on Saturday night in his postgame press conference and he did his best to walk it back on Monday.

“When you win, you want to taste it again," Irving said. "I never want to come from a place where I don’t want to sound like or maybe feel like I don’t want to win a championship. Sometimes I may come off and say things, never to question my teammates in public like that ever again, but I just want to win so bad. I came from a place where I asked for a trade and I come in here and believe in this organization, and I want these young guys to be successful. In order to do that we’ve all got to be on the same page and have that mindset that, a championship or nothing, and that can get the best of me at times.”

It’s unclear exactly who (if anyone) got Irving to walk back his rhetoric, but it was also evident after Monday’s loss Brown had grown tired of the critical sentiment the team faced internally during the first half of the year.

“We’ve just got to have each other’s backs at the end of the day,” Brown said when asked about the team’s uptight offense that struggled during the first three quarters. “We can’t make comments, we can’t point fingers. We just have to continue to empower each other and have each other’s backs. If we don’t, if we start pointing fingers, everybody’s going to go into their own little shells. We’ve got to continue to play basketball. It starts from the top to the bottom. Not from the bottom to the top but the top to the bottom. We’ve got to continue to empower each other and make the best of this. We have a lot of talent, and we know what we’re capable of doing. We have to go out there and do it. Playing free, playing loose, having fun.”

For as well as Irving has played this year and try to lead with his play, it’s fair to wonder just how much his critical leadership style has worn on this group when you hear comments like this from Brown. That’s not to say Irving’s criticism is not valid. The young guys like Terry Rozier, Brown and Jayson Tatum have struggled with shot selection and defensive miscues, while Rozier/Brown have been the biggest underachievers on the roster. However, different players respond to criticism in different ways and it’s evident that lighting these guys up in the media after every other loss is not exactly helping matters from a cohesiveness perspective. It’s also creating a perception of a divide, whether or not that is accurate.

“It’s not one guy’s fault,” Brown said. “It’s not young guys, old guys' fault. It’s everybody. We all have to be accountable to turn this thing around. There’s stretches where we play good basketball, and stretches we don’t, but we all have to have each other’s backs.”

On Monday night, Brown’s words rung true. The old guys were the bigger problem than the young guys. Marcus Morris (eight points, lazy defense) didn’t show much. Gordon Hayward and Al Horford combined for nine points. The young guys (minus Terry Rozier) led the failed comeback that made the game interesting after a 26-point second half deficit.

On a team that has more than its fair share of on-court issues (low free-throw rate, inconsistent defense, offensive lulls on the road), they can’t afford to deal with drama behind the scenes as well.

Irving took a step forward today with his comments but the bigger question will be whether he lives up to that mentality in the coming days and months after Brown publicly signaled his displeasure with the recent dialogue. With so much of the future of the franchise tied to Irving now, it’s important he figures out the best way to get through to this group and keep everyone fighting for one another. Otherwise, this season could end a lot sooner than anyone expected.