Kyrie Irving proving his leadership to teammates on road trip

Kyrie Irving proving his leadership to teammates on road trip


Kyrie Irving proving his leadership to teammates on road trip


After winning four of their last five games, the Boston Celtics are starting to pick up some much-needed momentum. For those wondering who to thank for their late season turnaround, Celtics starting forward Marcus Morris credits his teammate, Kyrie Irving.

While some assumed Irving was the root of the Celtics’ problems this season, his teammates do not see things that way.

Statistically speaking, Irving is having one of the best seasons of his career. Averaging 23.5 points, a career-high 6.9 assists, a career-high 4.9 rebounds and a career-high tying 1.5 steals per game, Irving is showing his doubters that he can be the leading man on an NBA roster.

He is also having a career year in field-goal percentage, shooting the ball at a career-high 49.8 percent. The same goes from beyond the arch, a career-high 42.2 percent.

His leadership came into question following some struggles such as the Celtics not being able to pull out enough wins, a reported team chemistry issue, and not re-committing to re-sign in Boston this offseason.

Aside from Morris speaking up on Irving’s great leadership, team veteran and fan favorite Al Horford credited Irving as well.

In particular, Horford would credit Irving for rallying the team together on the flight from Boston to Oakland, where the Celtics beat the Golden State Warriors 128-95:

“Kyrie was instrumental because he was the one that initiated everything as far as being like, ‘Hey, let’s have conversations, let’s play cards, let’s do this, let’s do that’ on this plane ride, and we were all engaged at that point.”

“He’s the one who got that ball rolling … We spent a good amount of time together, we talked, we laughed, stuff like that. It just happened to be extended. As opposed to an hour or two hours, almost seven hours. You’d think we’d get sick of each other but, actually, it made the plane ride go quicker. We were just hanging out and talking.”

Irving is working hard to fix any team chemistry issues and sees Boston as a team that will not beaten in a seven-game series come playoff time.

With some reports running wild and being taken out of context, the Celtics need to keep their focus on the court and off of social media.

Following the Celtics most recent win, against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, Irving spoke to the media about recognizing how his “energy” and “spirit” affect the team.

With teammates rallying behind Irving’s leadership and Irving starting to show that he’s up to the challenge of leading Boston, the Celtics have their eyes set on the playoffs with just 15 games left in the regular season.

The push for a higher seed starts now.

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