addByline("Marc D'Amico", "Celtics.com", "Marc_DAmico");
BOSTON – It’s time for all of us to be like Kyrie Irving.
We must accept reality, and we must dedicate our energy toward supporting the players who will lead the Celtics through the NBA Playoffs.
Shocking news broke Thursday afternoon that Irving’s first season with the Celtics has come to an end. His left knee requires a second surgery in as many weeks, and this one is far more extensive than the last.
On March 24, Irving underwent a minimally-invasive procedure to his left knee to remove a tension wire that was placed, along with two screws, in 2015 to repair a fractured patella. Following that recent procedure, pathology indicated the presence of a bacterial infection at the site of the original surgery.
The two screws must now also be removed from the surgical site in order to ensure that the infection will not remain. The second procedure will take place Saturday.
Today’s news stands as a massive blow to the Celtics team and all of those who support it. As recently as this morning, the widespread expectation was that Irving would return to the lineup during the postseason and lead the Celtics to an Eastern Conference title. Now, the reality is that he’s lost for the season, and the Celtics are left to pick up the pieces.
Surely, everyone who bleeds green and white was disheartened by the news. If they want to deal with this adversity in the best way possible, however, they can take a page out of Irving’s book.
There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then, finally, acceptance. Irving has sped up the process, moving from stage one to stage five in a heartbeat.
“In this case,” Irving wrote Thursday afternoon in an Instagram post, “finding out I have an infection in my knee is definitely a moment that I now accept and move past without holding on to the [sic] all the what ifs, proving the nay-Sayers [sic] completely f***ing wrong, and accomplishing the goals I’ve set out for the team and myself.”
Irving is already at stage five. The rest of us must follow him.
Doing so will help each individual fan, and it will help the team in the long run.
Irving is going to be on Boston’s bench cheering his teammates on throughout the postseason, and he wants the rest of Celtics Nation to do the same.
“Celtics fans,” he wrote in his Instagram post, “I look forward to hearing how loud it gets in the TD Garden during the Playoffs and experiencing how intense the environment gets.”
There’s real, legitimate reason for such an environment to develop in Boston. The Celtics have shown that they are equipped to compete with hot playoff teams even without Irving.
Boston has gone 7-4 since Irving last played on March 11, with four of those wins having been logged against top-six seeds in each conference. Two of the four losses were also by narrow margins of four points or fewer.
Another consideration is that the loss of Irving has sped up the growth of players like Terry Rozier and Jayson Tatum, and ignited the play of Marcus Morris.
Rozier has stepped into a starting role and has excelled. He has averaged 16.6 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game in 10 contests, all while making 40 percent of his 3s.
Tatum, meanwhile, has become a featured scorer, and he has done so while looking like a star. The rookie has increased his shot attempts from 9.9 per game before Irving went down to 13.6 since – an increase of nearly 40 percent. His scoring has also increased from an average of 13.3 PPG to 17.2 PPG - an increase of nearly 30 percent.
Morris, the veteran of Boston’s new scoring crew, has turned into the team’s top scoring threat. He has averaged 20.8 PPG since Irving became sidelined, and he has hit 44.7 percent of his 3s during that time frame.
Before Irving went down, Irving was one of only two Celtics, along with Jaylen Brown, who averaged at least 14 PPG. Since Irving went down, four Celtics are now averaging at least 14.0 PPG.
Boston is still getting it done, it’s just getting it done in different ways. Irving has been watching it all unfold, and so have the rest of us. We have all seen it work with our very own eyes.
There is reason to be hurt by today’s news, but there is also reason to accept it, to move on from it, and to believe in the team that remains.
That’s what Irving is doing, and that’s what the rest of us should do as well.