Monday, January 30, 2012
Associated Press
BOSTON
It was the same play Cleveland ran at the end of regulation in its third game this season — the third game of Kyrie Irving’s NBA career.
He missed that one.
On Sunday night, Cavaliers coach Byron Scott called it again.
“He (learned) not to miss the layup this time,” Scott said after Irving made a layup with 2.6 seconds left to give the Cavaliers an 88-87 victory over Boston. “He had that little look in his eye like he wanted it, almost like he wanted to redeem himself.”
Irving scored 23 points, including the go-ahead layup in the final seconds as Cleveland scored the last 12 points of the game to snap Boston’s four-game winning streak.
The No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 draft, Irving remembered missing a potential game-winner on the same play when the Cavaliers played Indiana on Dec. 30.
“They gave me the ball at the end of the game and they trusted me to make that shot,” said Irving, whose father, former Boston University star Drederick Irving, was in the stands. “So I’m happy that I actually made the shot this time.”
Irving scored eight points in the fourth quarter, including six in the 12-0 run that brought the Cavs back for the win. Anderson Varejao scored 18 points and added nine rebounds for Cleveland, which had lost five of six.
Ray Allen returned from an ankle injury and scored 22 points, making 4 of 6 from 3-point range. But he missed a jumper from the left corner when Boston still held a one-point lead on its second-to-last possession.
“This was a bad loss for us,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “Not that it was Cleveland; it was that we had the game under control. And we didn’t take care of it.”
Paul Pierce scored 18 points with six rebounds and five assists and seven turnovers for the Celtics. But he couldn’t get a shot off after Boston inbounded the ball with 2.1 seconds left.
After the game, Pierce acknowledged turning the ball over too much. But asked what the Celtics should have done differently in the fourth, when he sat on the bench until the 3:42 mark — Boston still led by eight points at the time — he said, “Maybe I should have played more.”