The Kyrie Irving free agency thread(to sign 4yr/$141M w/Nets page 105)

[Greengang5]

So you have a sick Kyrie and Hayward only has a 9.8% usage rate?  That is the problem right there.  Stevens should have run the offense through Hayward a lot more than he did last night.  Pace would have slowed, better shot selection, more team ball.  He did it for a couple possessions in the fourth and right away two assists and wide open looks for his teammates. 

Also, Middleton was guarding Hayward for 34 possessions and was able to sit in a corner with him and rest. 

One example of many poor decisions, but important nonetheless.

[gouki88]

So you have a sick Kyrie and Hayward only has a 9.8% usage rate?  That is the problem right there.  Stevens should have run the offense through Hayward a lot more than he did last night.  Pace would have slowed, better shot selection, more team ball.  He did it for a couple possessions in the fourth and right away two assists and wide open looks for his teammates. 

Also, Middleton was guarding Hayward for 34 possessions and was able to sit in a corner with him and rest. 

One example of many poor decisions, but important nonetheless.

Agree completely, TP. A below 10% usage rate for the player who is in my mind our second best offensive decision maker is completely inexcusable

[celticinorlando]

I expect a bounce back game Friday for him. 30 plus and 10 plus assists

[SHAQATTACK]

bad burrito

i knew it

[Big333223]

So you have a sick Kyrie and Hayward only has a 9.8% usage rate?  That is the problem right there.  Stevens should have run the offense through Hayward a lot more than he did last night.  Pace would have slowed, better shot selection, more team ball.  He did it for a couple possessions in the fourth and right away two assists and wide open looks for his teammates. 

Also, Middleton was guarding Hayward for 34 possessions and was able to sit in a corner with him and rest. 

One example of many poor decisions, but important nonetheless.

Agree completely, TP. A below 10% usage rate for the player who is in my mind our second best offensive decision maker is completely inexcusable

I couldn't watch the game last night so I'm curious about Hayward.

Isn't his low USG% on him? He was on the floor for 30 minutes last night, a night where apparently no one else had it (except Morris) and he only took 5 shots. I agree its inexcusable and it strikes me that Hayward would be chiefly to blame for being ineffectual in his minutes.

But I didn't get to see how it went down.

[droopdog7]

So you have a sick Kyrie and Hayward only has a 9.8% usage rate?  That is the problem right there.  Stevens should have run the offense through Hayward a lot more than he did last night.  Pace would have slowed, better shot selection, more team ball.  He did it for a couple possessions in the fourth and right away two assists and wide open looks for his teammates. 

Also, Middleton was guarding Hayward for 34 possessions and was able to sit in a corner with him and rest. 

One example of many poor decisions, but important nonetheless.

Players play.  I’m not sure how much he played with Rozier but that dude only cares about his usage rate.  Must be a maddening guy to play with.

[bopna]

So you have a sick Kyrie and Hayward only has a 9.8% usage rate?  That is the problem right there.  Stevens should have run the offense through Hayward a lot more than he did last night.  Pace would have slowed, better shot selection, more team ball.  He did it for a couple possessions in the fourth and right away two assists and wide open looks for his teammates. 

Also, Middleton was guarding Hayward for 34 possessions and was able to sit in a corner with him and rest. 

One example of many poor decisions, but important nonetheless.

Agree completely, TP. A below 10% usage rate for the player who is in my mind our second best offensive decision maker is completely inexcusable

Bingo...
Hayward has been misused in the last 6 quarters now going back to the second half of G1 where to be fair he wasn't needed but the first 2 quarters of G1 he was balling... Give GH a [dang] role Brad and not sit him in a corner where as everyone pointed.. Middleton was able to rest.

[Greengang5]

So you have a sick Kyrie and Hayward only has a 9.8% usage rate?  That is the problem right there.  Stevens should have run the offense through Hayward a lot more than he did last night.  Pace would have slowed, better shot selection, more team ball.  He did it for a couple possessions in the fourth and right away two assists and wide open looks for his teammates. 

Also, Middleton was guarding Hayward for 34 possessions and was able to sit in a corner with him and rest. 

One example of many poor decisions, but important nonetheless.

Agree completely, TP. A below 10% usage rate for the player who is in my mind our second best offensive decision maker is completely inexcusable

I couldn't watch the game last night so I'm curious about Hayward.

Isn't his low USG% on him? He was on the floor for 30 minutes last night, a night where apparently no one else had it (except Morris) and he only took 5 shots. I agree its inexcusable and it strikes me that Hayward would be chiefly to blame for being ineffectual in his minutes.

But I didn't get to see how it went down.

Hayward was not involved in the offense at all most of the game.  The few times he brought the ball up it was to initiate the horns set for Kyrie and Al.  Very few PnR with Al etc. that worked the last month or so.  The one time they ran PnR early it was with Baynes and he missed the wide open three. 

Outside of the set plays there isn't much opportunity to play freely on offense because I believe the philosophy is to get back on D and stop the transition.  Brown crashed the boards late, but figure if it was a close game Stevens wouldn't like that if he didn't get the rebound and there was a break.

Just not sure why we didn't let Hayward come in and run point during his first run just like Game 1.  It gets him going and Kyrie to the off guard.  Too often Hayward goes an hour (real time) without being involved. 

That said, I think everyone sucked, but Morris, and a lot of players stopped competing. 

[Big333223]

So you have a sick Kyrie and Hayward only has a 9.8% usage rate?  That is the problem right there.  Stevens should have run the offense through Hayward a lot more than he did last night.  Pace would have slowed, better shot selection, more team ball.  He did it for a couple possessions in the fourth and right away two assists and wide open looks for his teammates. 

Also, Middleton was guarding Hayward for 34 possessions and was able to sit in a corner with him and rest. 

One example of many poor decisions, but important nonetheless.

Agree completely, TP. A below 10% usage rate for the player who is in my mind our second best offensive decision maker is completely inexcusable

I couldn't watch the game last night so I'm curious about Hayward.

Isn't his low USG% on him? He was on the floor for 30 minutes last night, a night where apparently no one else had it (except Morris) and he only took 5 shots. I agree its inexcusable and it strikes me that Hayward would be chiefly to blame for being ineffectual in his minutes.

But I didn't get to see how it went down.

Hayward was not involved in the offense at all most of the game.  The few times he brought the ball up it was to initiate the horns set for Kyrie and Al.  Very few PnR with Al etc. that worked the last month or so.  The one time they ran PnR early it was with Baynes and he missed the wide open three. 

Outside of the set plays there isn't much opportunity to play freely on offense because I believe the philosophy is to get back on D and stop the transition.  Brown crashed the boards late, but figure if it was a close game Stevens wouldn't like that if he didn't get the rebound and there was a break.

Just not sure why we didn't let Hayward come in and run point during his first run just like Game 1.  It gets him going and Kyrie to the off guard.  Too often Hayward goes an hour (real time) without being involved. 

That said, I think everyone sucked, but Morris, and a lot of players stopped competing.

How much responsibility does Hayward need to take for that?

As I said, I didn't watch the game so maybe I shouldn't be saying this but it does seem to me that there's a trend where guys like Morris, Rozier, and Kyrie are often chastised for taking too many shots but when Hayward has a game where he barely shows up he's "not being used right." Stevens' system leaves a lot of room for guys to improvise. If Hayward isn't doing anything (forget not doing things well, just not doing anything) he has to carry a big percentage of the blame.

[ozgod]

So you have a sick Kyrie and Hayward only has a 9.8% usage rate?  That is the problem right there.  Stevens should have run the offense through Hayward a lot more than he did last night.  Pace would have slowed, better shot selection, more team ball.  He did it for a couple possessions in the fourth and right away two assists and wide open looks for his teammates. 

Also, Middleton was guarding Hayward for 34 possessions and was able to sit in a corner with him and rest. 

One example of many poor decisions, but important nonetheless.

Agree completely, TP. A below 10% usage rate for the player who is in my mind our second best offensive decision maker is completely inexcusable

I couldn't watch the game last night so I'm curious about Hayward.

Isn't his low USG% on him? He was on the floor for 30 minutes last night, a night where apparently no one else had it (except Morris) and he only took 5 shots. I agree its inexcusable and it strikes me that Hayward would be chiefly to blame for being ineffectual in his minutes.

But I didn't get to see how it went down.

Hayward was not involved in the offense at all most of the game.  The few times he brought the ball up it was to initiate the horns set for Kyrie and Al.  Very few PnR with Al etc. that worked the last month or so.  The one time they ran PnR early it was with Baynes and he missed the wide open three. 

Outside of the set plays there isn't much opportunity to play freely on offense because I believe the philosophy is to get back on D and stop the transition.  Brown crashed the boards late, but figure if it was a close game Stevens wouldn't like that if he didn't get the rebound and there was a break.

Just not sure why we didn't let Hayward come in and run point during his first run just like Game 1.  It gets him going and Kyrie to the off guard.  Too often Hayward goes an hour (real time) without being involved. 

That said, I think everyone sucked, but Morris, and a lot of players stopped competing.

How much responsibility does Hayward need to take for that?

As I said, I didn't watch the game so maybe I shouldn't be saying this but it does seem to me that there's a trend where guys like Morris, Rozier, and Kyrie are often chastised for taking too many shots but when Hayward has a game where he barely shows up he's "not being used right." Stevens' system leaves a lot of room for guys to improvise. If Hayward isn't doing anything (forget not doing things well, just not doing anything) he has to carry a big percentage of the blame.

Tommy Heinsohn said the reason was he was sharing a lot of game time with Kyrie and Terry who were both the primary ball handlers who would initiate offense at the top of the key. Hayward was used the way Jaylen Brown was, to mainly stand in the corner as a spacer.

The other thing is, Gordon isn't the type of player to jack up shots for the sake of increasing his shot count, unlike some of the others who are a little more trigger happy.

Also keep in mind that they didn't move the ball around much last night as they have been in the past. Kyrie was trying to shoot his way out of his shooting slump.

[Donoghus]

Sick or not, he had a pretty awful night.  As ugly as we've seen out of him in a Celtics uni.

I don't expect to see that again this series.   We should expect bounce back out of him. 

What I don't want to see again is the absolute collapse of an offense that occurred in the 3rd quarter.  Once MIL started their run, it seemed like the Celtics completely abandoned the type of offense that had worked well in Game 1 and pretty well in the 1st half of Game 2 and decided to get into a gunner shootout.

[Moranis]

Maybe he was sick, but this is not the lowest percentage he has shot in a game this season.  He had 2 separate regular season games with a worse shooting percentage and one of those he took 14 shots making just 2 (so it wasn't a small sample size).  He had 5 separate regular season games this year where he was 30% or worse from the field and in 2 of those games he had 21 shots (making 6) and 17 shots (making 5). 

This also isn't the first time he has been terrible in the playoffs.  His last year in Cleveland he was 4 of 17, 6 of 19, and 7 of 21.  Even one of the finals games he was just 8 of 23.  The year before that when Cleveland won the title he had a lovely 3 of 19 game against the Raptors in the ECF.  He also had 3 separate finals games against the Warriors where he was 7 of 22, 5 of 14, and 7 of 18.  Even that first season where he ended up missing a lot of games, he was pretty bad in 3 games going 2 of 10, 3 of 13, and 3 of 11.  In other words, Kyrie has pretty consistently throughout his playoff runs put up some pretty awful shooting performances.

So yeah there is amazing playoff Kyrie, which we see at times (like game 1), but there is also the playoff Kyrie that is downright terrible (like game 2).  And again maybe he really was sick, or maybe it was just Kyrie being Kyrie and the writers are trying to make excuses for his otherwise poor play. 

[RJ87]

Maybe he was sick, but this is not the lowest percentage he has shot in a game this season.  He had 2 separate regular season games with a worse shooting percentage and one of those he took 14 shots making just 2 (so it wasn't a small sample size).  He had 5 separate regular season games this year where he was 30% or worse from the field and in 2 of those games he had 21 shots (making 6) and 17 shots (making 5). 

This also isn't the first time he has been terrible in the playoffs.  His last year in Cleveland he was 4 of 17, 6 of 19, and 7 of 21.  Even one of the finals games he was just 8 of 23.  The year before that when Cleveland won the title he had a lovely 3 of 19 game against the Raptors in the ECF.  He also had 3 separate finals games against the Warriors where he was 7 of 22, 5 of 14, and 7 of 18.  Even that first season where he ended up missing a lot of games, he was pretty bad in 3 games going 2 of 10, 3 of 13, and 3 of 11.  In other words, Kyrie has pretty consistently throughout his playoff runs put up some pretty awful shooting performances.

So yeah there is amazing playoff Kyrie, which we see at times (like game 1), but there is also the playoff Kyrie that is downright terrible (like game 2).  And again maybe he really was sick, or maybe it was just Kyrie being Kyrie and the writers are trying to make excuses for his otherwise poor play.

Do you log a diary entry every time he has a bad shooting night?

The fact is, most players - even elite ones - have bad shooting nights. Kyrie is not immune from that, but he is still one of the most efficient shot makers in the game (his playoff averages are .461 FG/.412 3PTFG /.876 FT with a true shooting percentage of 57%). We can cherry pick stats from an assortment of players.

[moiso]

I'm sure he was either very sick or just had a bad game but I keep thinking about Phil Jackson saying how Kobe used to sabotage games so he could be the hero in crunch time.  Kyrie was so bad and his shot selection was so pathetic it almost seemed like he was doing it on purpose.  I don't really think that's true but it sure seemed that way.

I understand that Kyrie is maybe the top difficult shot maker in the league, but he would be a much better player if he took more normal shots and saved the circus stuff for when he really needs it or is so hot that he can't miss.  It's always said that a layup or a couple free throws can get a player on the right track.  I'm not surprised Kyrie never got on the right track with the crazy shots that he was taking.

[Moranis]

Maybe he was sick, but this is not the lowest percentage he has shot in a game this season.  He had 2 separate regular season games with a worse shooting percentage and one of those he took 14 shots making just 2 (so it wasn't a small sample size).  He had 5 separate regular season games this year where he was 30% or worse from the field and in 2 of those games he had 21 shots (making 6) and 17 shots (making 5). 

This also isn't the first time he has been terrible in the playoffs.  His last year in Cleveland he was 4 of 17, 6 of 19, and 7 of 21.  Even one of the finals games he was just 8 of 23.  The year before that when Cleveland won the title he had a lovely 3 of 19 game against the Raptors in the ECF.  He also had 3 separate finals games against the Warriors where he was 7 of 22, 5 of 14, and 7 of 18.  Even that first season where he ended up missing a lot of games, he was pretty bad in 3 games going 2 of 10, 3 of 13, and 3 of 11.  In other words, Kyrie has pretty consistently throughout his playoff runs put up some pretty awful shooting performances.

So yeah there is amazing playoff Kyrie, which we see at times (like game 1), but there is also the playoff Kyrie that is downright terrible (like game 2).  And again maybe he really was sick, or maybe it was just Kyrie being Kyrie and the writers are trying to make excuses for his otherwise poor play.

Do you log a diary entry every time he has a bad shooting night?

The fact is, most players - even elite ones - have bad shooting nights. Kyrie is not immune from that, but he is still one of the most efficient shot makers in the game (his playoff averages are .461 FG/.412 3PTFG /.876 FT with a true shooting percentage of 57%). We can cherry pick stats from an assortment of players.

This is the same argument I made time and time again on here about Rondo.  This board has pretty consistently only examined the great things our players do and pretty widely disregarded the poor things and the inconsistency.  The reason though that that sort of inconsistency matters more for Kyrie, then many other great players, is quite simply because Kyrie doesn't do much else.  He isn't making up for a poor shooting night by playing lights out defense.  He isn't cleaning up the glass and by and large isn't getting others involved with his passing.  If Kyrie doesn't shoot well it is a bad sign for the W/L department, especially against the better teams the C's face in the playoffs.