Xuenou > Sports > Kyrie Irving takes to social media to voice past playoff regret
Kyrie Irving takes to social media to voice past playoff regret
Kyrie Irving takes to social media to voice past playoff regret,Kyrie Irving took to social media to look back on what might have been during the 2021 NBA postseason.

Kyrie Irving takes to social media to voice past playoff regret

Kyrie Irving is clearly tweeting through his absence from the playoffs this spring.

The star Dallas Mavericks guard reacted this week to a tweet from a Milwaukee Bucks fan lamenting that Giannis Antetokounmpo’s back injury had warped the Bucks’ first-round series against the Miami Heat this year. A Brooklyn Nets fan responded that it might have a similar impact to Irving’s ankle injury in the 2021 playoffs

Irving then jumped in to the conversation, claiming that the Nets would have won the title that year if he had not gotten hurt.

“One of the most disappointing and painful moments of [my] career,” Irving tweeted of the injury. “If I don’t get hurt that series, every single one of us on that Brooklyn team/bandwagon would be Champions. No f***ing doubt about it.”

One of the most disappointing and painful moments of career. If I don’t get hurt that series, every single one of us on that Brooklyn team/bandwagon would be Champions. No f***ing doubt about it.

Hélà
♾

— HélàA11Even Tribe (@KyrieIrving) April 25, 2023

Two years back, the eight-time All-Star injured his ankle in Game 4 of the Nets’ series against the Milwaukee Bucks and wound up missing the final three games. It was Antetokounmpo’s foot that he landed on and (even several months later) Irving seemed to suggest that Antetokounmpo had intentionally tried to injure him.

Irving actually might not be extremely far off base here, given that the Nets came within  a Kevin Durant big toe from eliminating Milwaukee that season. The Bucks, of course, went on to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy. It is always dangerous to play the what-if game, though. Even if they had gotten past Milwaukee, Brooklyn still would have had to face the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference Finals — and then the Phoenix Suns during the NBA Finals (all while maintaining injury luck throughout).

Both Irving and Durant were traded away from Brooklyn in February, with just a lone playoff series win to show for their three-plus seasons together. But the failure of the Nets experiment probably had more to do with Irving’s own never-ending antics than with a single bad injury break.