Celtics' Kyrie Irving Brushes Off Injury Scare, Wants Revenge On Some Teams

The Boston Celtics recorded their fourth straight win after making a disappointing start to the season which saw them with a 10-10 record after 20 games. Brad Stevens’ team were touted as one of the favorites in the Eastern Conference, but they had lived up to the hype until the last week.

The Celtics beat the New York Knicks 128-100 on Thursday night at the TD Garden making it four wins on the trot to take their record to 14-10 for the season. They remain in sixth place, but have a similar record to the Indiana Pacers just above them.

Kyrie Irving, who finished with 22 points and eight assists, admitted after the game that he was looking for revenge against the Knicks, who had beaten the Celtics 117-109 on Nov. 22. He also said there are a few other teams that are on his radar having lost to them when the team was not at their best.

“You know I was thinking about it,” Irving said after the win, as quoted on NESN. "Since we lost to them, there are a few teams that we owe. I still remember certain players on other teams asking us what’s going on, you know, when we were 10-10. So, yeah, keep that same energy.”

The win over the Knicks was a proper team effort with seven players getting into double digits. Irving top scored but was closely followed by Jaylen Brown, who got 21 points in his first game back from a back injury. Jayson Tatum and Al Horford contributed with 17 and 19 points respectively.

Irving was delighted to see the team performing as one unit and immediately credited it toward the amount of “fun” all the players were having while being on the court. He also urged the players to continue fighting and cheering on one another as he believes it is the best way to continue their winning run.

“Yeah, I’ve talked about it before we should have fun kicking people’s ass,” the Celtics guard added. “We should, we really should. It should be — competition itself should bring out the best out of you. The way you bring the best out of your opponent is you play at a certain level where they either match it or they exceed it or they don’t do anything at all and they just give up.”

“All in all, we just want the best for one another so I think at this point we’re just playing with a sense of effort where now it’s not so much about who’s playing or who has more talent. It’s about who’s going to give that effort every single time down? Who’s going to demand it from one another and hold each other accountable? When you go from there, you start building some great championship habits,” he said.

However, the game was not without incident with the Celtics getting a double injury scare. The first was to Australian center Aaron Baynes, who suffered an ankle injury in the first quarter and did not play the rest of the game. But the major scare was when it seemed that Irving had suffered a shoulder injury following a knock in the fourth.

Irving brushed off any concern about his injury suggesting that he will be alright despite being sent to the doctors after the game. Baynes, however, seems a larger concern as he was unable to play after sustaining the injury.

"It's the AC joint. I'm not diagnosing myself. I'm pretty sure. I saw the doctor afterward, and he said A.C. joint," Irving said after his visit to the medical staff, as quoted on MassLive. "I'll be all right."

"In typical Baynes fashion, he said he'll do three-on-three drills tomorrow after he does fullcourt sprints and runs a marathon and he'll be ready for the flight and will play on Saturday," coach Stevens said. "I don't know if our doctors will agree with that, but we'll see. Baynes thinks he can play through anything."

The Celtics travel to Chicago to take on the Bulls on Saturday and Irving will hope that the team can continue their winning run and build further momentum ahead of a tough matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday night.