Has Anyone Seen Kyrie Irving?
By Kevin Nye
Kyrie Irving is one of the top players in the NBA. His round one stats don’t reflect that at all. How bad was this stretch for him?
Kyrie Irving is a stud. He solidified that in Game 7 of last year’s NBA Finals. He can beat anyone in the league off the dribble, is one of the best little-guy finishers at the rim in NBA history, and he is lethal on pull-up jumpers.
Like I said, he’s a stud.
But this has been a weird stretch for him.
From February 8th through March 24th, Kyrie played in 19 games. He shot 50 percent from the field and 41 percent on threes. He had one game under 40 percent from the floor and one other game at 40.9 percent overall.
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Irving then shot 35 percent or worse in five of the next seven games, something he hadn’t done all season. He looked like he righted the ship when the final two games of the regular season saw him go 24-43 (56%).
These playoffs, however, have knocked him for a loop.
Yes, the Cleveland Cavaliers swept the Indian Pacers in round one. Yes, Kyrie Irving scored 37 in Game 2 and 28 in Game 4, averaging over 25 for the series. Yes, he’s still a stud.
Even so, Kyrie did not look good in this series. Despite his 37-point outburst in Game 2, Irving shot just 42 percent from the floor and an abysmal 22 percent on threes. He made just one long-ball each in Games 1, 3, and 4, despite a total of 22 attempts in those games.
Kyrie was effectively benched toward the end of the 3rd quarter in Game 3. He was 4-17 from the field and Deron Williams was just playing better than him. He watched from the bench as the Cavaliers completed the biggest comeback in NBA playoff history.
Things continued in Game 4, when Kyrie managed to record zero assists in 38 minutes of work. Some of the blame can go on Kevin Love for being 2-13 from the field, some of the blame can go on Tristan Thompson being 2-6, but most of it should be on Kyrie not getting his teammates involved enough.
This is a familiar theme, too, as LeBron once admonished Kyrie for a zero assist game.
Irving took 25 shots in Game 4. He took 27 in Game 1 and 24 in Game 2. Over the course of the series, Irving shot the ball roughly every 1:20 on the court. That might not seem crazy, but it’s about 20 seconds more often than he shot the ball in the regular season.
That matters. The Cavaliers beat teams because their opponents can’t stop everybody. Stop Kyrie and you have to deal with LeBron, JR, Frye, Korver, Williams, Love, and the rest. However, you only have to deal with the rest of those guys if Kyrie gives them the ball.
In 38 fewer minutes, Kyrie Irving took one more field goal than LeBron James in the Pacers series. James shot 54 percent, Irving 42 percent.
The point of all this is that there are two ways to look at these stats:
1) Kyrie Irving has struggled over the past 15 games and that’s part of why the Cavaliers are not playing particularly well.
2) Kyrie Irving has struggled and the Cavaliers still swept in round one.
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I’m sticking with option No. 2 because it’s more optimistic. Kyrie Irving will more than likely return to form in the second round, as averaging two assists over the four game sweep is uncharacteristic, even for him.