Kyrie Irving tries to tune out noise as recruitment begins at MSG

Kyrie Irving always relishes playing in front of his hometown crowd and that group wasn’t shy about giving him some extra love during the Celtics’ 113-99 win on Friday night.

In the wake of a trade that sent former face of the franchise Kristaps Porzingis packing on Thursday, the Madison Square Garden faithful was eager to start recruiting one of their new targets early on Friday, cheering Irving during team intros and whenever he touched the ball. “We want Kyrie” chants also picked up steam on multiple occasions throughout the night.

“Everybody heard it,” Irving told reporters in New York after the victory. “I’m grateful for everybody identifying how talented I am, who wants to play with me, I’m appreciative, but at the end of the day, like I said this morning, I’m going to make the best decision for me and my family, and that’s how it’s going to go.”

Irving, who led the Celtics in points (23), rebounds (10), and assists (six) in the win, was continuously peppered with questions about the chants during his postgame press conference but also took a shot at all the speculation that has been swirling connecting him to the Knicks.

“It’s nothing but a distraction at this point,” Irving said of the chants. “Like I said, I’m appreciative of the fan support I get in any arena but of course coming back home obviously what’s going on in terms of that noise and commentary, it’s just a bunch of nonsense right now. You can’t do anything about it.”

Irving can complain about the nonsense speculation all he wants but this is arguably a mess that he made for himself.

No one forced him to announce his plans to re-sign to Boston in the fall and he was only asked about that commitment again on Friday when speculation arose about his future. He might not like living under the microscope, but this stuff should come as no surprise to him. He could have elected to end the speculation and drama today, but he chose not to. Now, he has to live with it. On Friday night, he appeared to come to terms that this storyline would be following him around for the rest of the season after he managed to dodge it for months.

“Obviously you’d hope it would quiet down, but it doesn’t help when across the league it’s just outside noise again, and my name gets thrown into it,” Irving said. "Conversations, speculations, everybody’s worried about their credibility. I don’t know how this media empire works. I know it’s a bunch of nonsense to me. I have a focus in winning a championship this year, and that’s where my focus is going to stay. Even me saying something like that is not concrete enough for everybody. It is what it is."

The bigger question now for Irving and his teammates is just how they will respond to the media frenzy that will surround them for the next few months. Friday night was about as easy of a test as they will get for the remainder of the season, against a tanking Knicks team that was missing its starting backcourt after the Porzingis blockbuster deal.

Things will pick up in the next week though. A date with the surging Thunder (winners of seven straight) looms on Super Bowl Sunday. LeBron James and Doc Rivers will make visits to the Garden as well before a showdown with the Sixers in Philly, all of which comes in the next 10 days.

Irving’s veteran teammates though aren’t going to let themselves get wrapped up in his words as they showed a sign of support for the All-Star.

“He’s a guy that’s very polarizing in the NBA,” Marcus Morris explained. “Everything he says is going to be, even if it’s not really that serious, it’ll be taken out of proportion, but like I said, man, he still comes in, he’s a professional, we all love him, we all want him here.”

While the front office sweats up the future of Anthony Davis ahead of the trade deadline, this group can’t let themselves hit another speed bump after winning seven of their last eight games. It’s starting to look like they’ve turned a corner, something I’ve written approximately five times this year. Whether or not they can drown out the drama and make a legitimate run at a top-two seed will speak volumes about their capabilities during this postseason. Friday night was a very small but positive step on that front.