Without fans at TD Garden for the Nets’ trip to visit the Celtics on Friday — and the fact it was a preseason meeting — there wasn’t the type of tension expected in Kyrie Irving’s first game back in Boston. It’s clear Irving’s former teammates have moved on — two gave him their jerseys after the Nets’ 113-89 win. Brooklyn’s point guard says he feels similarly.
“It’s like going on another day at the job, honestly,” Irving said about his return to Boston on a Zoom call with reporters following Friday’s preseason win. “I’m grateful to be able to have relationships with a lot of these guys still here, guys that aren’t here [anymore]. At the end of the day, we went to war together. I respect all those young men down there.
“We’re not even young, you know. We’re just young kings growing in a business where we wanna do what makes us happy, and to see Jayson [Tatum] get better, to see Jaylen [Brown] get better, to see these guys mature and be in the positions that they’re in, I’m nothing but proud of them. To see other guys be happy, that’s all I could want. So, coming here is easy. Performing here is easy. Basketball’s the easy part. It’s just the external stuff beforehand that gets a little noisy, so try to limit that.”
Irving and the Nets will visit the Celtics again on Christmas.
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