Kyrie Irving takes accountability as Nets freefall continues to 9th place

BOSTON — With less than 30 seconds to go in the fourth quarter of the Celtics’ 126-120 victory over the Nets on Sunday, the Boston faithful waited to unleash what they’d held in all day long.

“Kyrie sucks,” the fans chanted at the end of the period.

In his first game back at the TD Garden since Brooklyn’s first-round playoff series against the Celtics last season, Nets superstar Kyrie Irving was not very super.

Irving scored 19 points on 8-of-18 shooting from the field and 2-of-6 shooting from downtown and turned the ball over three times. He was 1-of-5 from downtown until making a three with less than 15 seconds to go in the fourth quarter, a shot that merely extended an inevitable Nets loss that sent them further down the Eastern Conference standings.

Not to mention Celtics fans booed Irving from the pregame warmups, through pregame introductions, through every dribble he took until he passed the ball, only cheering when he did something wrong, like throw the ball away or miss a shot. They booed him because he once wore their jersey and told Boston fans he wanted to retire a Celtic, only to change course and sign with the Nets shortly after.

“I know it’s gonna be like that for the rest of my career coming in here,” Irving said of the boos after the game. “It’s like the scorned girlfriend who just wants an explanation on why I left but (is) still hoping for a text back, and I’m just like yeah—it was fun while it lasted.”

The same can be said of the Nets’ championship aspirations—it was fun while it lasted—if Irving does not play up to the superstar level he holds himself.

By that superstar measure, Irving was average in Boston on Sunday, which is the exact opposite of what the Nets need him to be given his part-time status and the team’s roster turbulence if they’re going to stand a chance in their continued but sullied pursuit of a championship in a broken season.

“I think we’ve all accepted that it’s been a funky year. It’s been a lot going on in and out of the lineup. I think we have one of the most changing lineups in the league,” Irving said. “It takes a big hindrance on everything, and I take my accountability for that.

“We’re not in this do or die mode, but we just know in order for us to be in position for contention, we’ve gotta do the little things in order to win every single night. And I’m gonna have to show up even more.”

Sunday’s loss was yet another defeat in the face of a must-win. It was the Nets’ fourth loss in a row, their 17th in their last 20 games, another reality check proving star power alone cannot compensate for a discombobulated team crumbling under the pressure of its own championship expectations.

The Nets’ loss in Boston moved them below-.500 for the first time since they were 2-3 on Oct. 27. They are now tied with the Charlotte Hornets—who they play on Tuesday—at 32-33, but the Hornets won their only matchup against the Nets this season, which means the Nets are now the East’s ninth seed and the Hornets are the eighth.

“We came out there tonight and put ourselves in position to win the basketball game. We just didn’t win,” said Kevin Durant. “And I know that sucks because we just (went) under .500, but we can’t complain, worry, be concerned, you know? That’s not going to do nothing for us.”

Sunday’s loss was a disappointing result to say the least: Yes, the Celtics are good, but the Nets are supposed to be better. Yes, Boston’s defense is solid, and yes, Jayson Tatum is an emerging superstar, but the Nets have Durant and Irving. In theory, they should be able to win any game against teams with superstars lesser than theirs.

That type of dominance, however, is only in play if Irving shows up. Irving can’t show up at home because of his decision not to get vaccinated coupled with New York City’s lingering private sector vaccine mandate that allows him to enter Barclays Center, but not step on the court and perform as a player.

This is what happens when Irving is not the star the Nets need him to be: Brooklyn becomes overly reliant on Durant, who scored 37 points on 12-of-21 shooting from the field but had no scoring burst from his superstar teammate. The Nets’ next most impactful player was Bruce Brown, the Boston product who finished with 16 points, six assists and five rebounds, but continues playing above his means, outside the reserve role the Nets brought him back to play.

And their roster—a roster that entered the season with 10 new faces only to be torn apart midseason in the James Harden deal—looks like a team playing pickup basketball at the park. They hustle, they get the ball to their best players, but they don’t truly know each other. Not like the Celtics, who’ve had Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart together for the last five years.

Is there enough time—17 more regular-season games to be exact—for the Nets to build that Boston-like chemistry?

“Man, I wish I had an answer for that, like tomorrow,” Irving said.

Where the Nets lack chemistry, they have wagered on star power.

Which naturally brings us back to Ben Simmons, the All-Star forward who continues to miss time for a variety of reasons.

First it was conditioning, now it’s back soreness. While it’s unclear when Simmons will make his Nets debut, it’s now without a shadow of a doubt that the 25-year-old Australian forward will not be available to play in the Nets’ March 10 matchup in Philadelphia against the 76ers, the first game between the two teams since the James Harden trade.

The Nets dealt Harden, who despite his flaws was critical to the team’s offensive flow, for a package headlined by Simmons, Seth Curry and Andre Drummond. Simmons projects to give the team a different dynamic, but he has yet to fully practice with the team. Durant, who said he’s not trying to be a savior, didn’t seem to feel Simmons is going to solve all the Nets’ issues, either.

“He’s a versatile player. He can go multiple positions and create offensively just a unique player,” Durant said of Simmons, before hedging: “But we can’t—we’ve got to still play the game and win the games, whoever is on the floor. It’s professional sports, the next-man up mentality.”

Had Simmons been available, it would have been his task, not Durant’s, to guard the red-hot Tatum.

Tatum doused the Nets in lighter fluid, struck a match and shot it from three eight times for 54 points. He got the help Durant needed, but didn’t receive, to pull away with a victory: All other four Boston starters scored in double figures, and Jaylen Brown scored 21.

Because the Nets built their championship hopes on star power, it’s rare they will have the type of game where every starter scores 10 or more. That’s why they need Irving to be super at all times—or at least half the time—and that’s why they need Simmons on the floor as soon as possible.

Time is running out for this team to build continuity, so the Nets are going to have to settle with leaning on their stars. That starts with Irving, playing like a Top 75 player even if he was left off the league’s list, and with Simmons making the jump to finally touch the floor. Even that, the star power the Nets invested so heavily in, might not be enough to buoy this team from an F in the final semester of their chemistry class with just 17 games left on the schedule.

“It’s film sessions, it’s walk-throughs, and it’s playing games. You can’t cheat common experiences,” said head coach Steve Nash. “Our guys have got to know what spots they’re in, what positions they’re in. …  That takes time and that takes reps, and we can do all we can in the film sessions or walk-throughs, but largely it’s going to have to happen in the games.”