Thanks for choosing Felger and Maz to entertain my nickname is Kloon and inform you in the afternoon. The people who like licorice really like licorice. 985, the Sports Hub. Anthony, how you doing? Good, you? Just peachy. Where do we think we stand day two with Kyrie Irving? So I don't think anything has changed. And I just think that now it's a matter of, you know, an interesting thing ppped into my head. And I meant to share with this with you as we just before he came on the air. So forgive me for not informing you at a time. But I start to wonder in this sort of thing. Like if you're Kyrie and you've gotten this far, because again, Stephen said right there, right then and there, he's had to manage it all year. He's had to work hard on it. And clearly it's gotten on the point now where maybe it's gotten a little worse. If you're Kyrie, you don't get this far and then say, screw it. Right? You've come too far. The playoffs are about about to start the whole point is you get to go

in the postseason now without lebron like your whole season was aimed toward this to play the

important games without lebron i wonder if and this is not i'm not telling you i have any inside

info i'm just speculating but i wonder if the celtics are encouraging him to shut it down. Like, I'd wonder if

the Celtics look at it and say, slow down. Like, and if this thing doesn't go away, we're

going to pull the plug on you. Hayward's out already. Smart's out. We're not going to have him

back till the middle of May anyway. We've lost Tice, not that they put that

in the same category, but we're taking hits on all sides here. And so, you know what? We're going

to pull the plug on you, not the other way around. Because the instinct is that the player

says, I can't go when he hurts. And I wonder if in this case, it's backwards. Do you read anything into? And that's, I, because I get the feeling, and I do it based on the last night, that Irving's going to come back. Just his body language on the bench. You know, if, if, if he wants to play, I think. Yeah. And, you know, I would say if... You know, he's going to get the second opinion. He's going to see the specialist. And, again, according to Mass's reporting, and pretty much looks like the lay of the land, that if the recommendation is to take those screws out, he takes them out now, and he's done. If that were really... if he felt that was going to happen, would he be on the bench carrying on like he was last night? You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, he felt awfully invested there for someone who might get told to shut it down tomorrow. Yeah, no, no. I think he wants to play. I think Kyrie wants to play. I think he has, you know, and I think they're at the point where if they have to, he doesn't play until the playoffs. Like we touched on this yesterday. It wouldn't surprise me at all at this stage. You got what, 10 games left? You know, something like that? You get to this stage with him, you know he can play. You know, what are you worried about him for? His ability is indisputable. So, maybe if you're Kyrie, you see, you know what, just we're going to shut you down. You're not playing again in the regular season. We're going to get that thing as healthy as we can, and then we'll see how we go. Because once we get into the playoffs anyway, we're going to get two days off sometimes. So you might be able to give us 40 minutes, do nothing on the next day. On the second day, just, you know, get it loose a little bit, whatever, get on the bike, maybe take a couple of jumpers, just keep your feel right. But nothing hard. And then we'll have you back out there for game too. Maybe that's how they're going to do it. But I think the issue is real, is my point. Oh, I don't think there's any question about it. I just liked his body language last night. He was not carrying on, again, on the bench, just cheering on his teammates. He did not look to me like a guy who's going to be told tomorrow to shut it down, or that he felt that that was a possibility.

Now, it is a possibility, it turns out.

But I was encouraged by just the way he looked on the bench.

Gary Washburn writes in the Boston Globe,

if Irving is healthy and able to play, he should return.

But if playing this season poses any risks to his long-term health and his status for next season,

when the Settles will bring back a healthy Gordon Hayward along with more experienced Brown and Jason Tatum,

Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, for a bona fide NBA title run, then he should get the surgery.

Irving was supposed to play Sunday, New Orleans, but was ruled out early that afternoon.

On Monday, he was ruled out of Tuesday's game. He already has been ruled out of the road trip that begins on Friday. There doesn't seem to be any encouraging news on the horizon if Irving has treated and rested his knee for nearly two weeks and is still feeling discomfort. And what Washmer is basically saying is, they're on the side of surgery,

they're on the side of shutting him down. How do you feel about that, Murray? Yeah, I think the team should be thinking longer term. Because Kyrie can doctor shop all he wants and find a doctor that's eventually going to tell him, yeah, you'll be all right. You can play on this. Don't worry about it. And that's a concern. And this is why I didn't want Gordon Hayward to rush back, too.

You know he wants to play.

But if it's the team standing in his way saying, hey, no, we've got to think longer term here. They're right to do that. So again, Washman writes, the Celtics have to plan on Irving not coming back. That's not because the knee is too damaged, but because if after 10 days he's seeking a second opinion, it may be worth having corrective surgery. So that's really the... The clerks of it. That's right. He hasn't played in 10 days. And even the last game he played, he only played 15 minutes. So he has played one half in 11, 12 days. And after that 10-day rest period, he needs to see a second opinion.

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