The Boston Celtics season came to a close with a 116-91 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, their fourth in a row after winning Game 1 on the road.
TAKEAWAYS: Bucks advance to Eastern Conference Finals with big Game 5 win
After a promising Game 1 win in Milwaukee, Boston struggled to replicate their intensity on both sides of the ball over the next four games, with Irving quick to give the Bucks credit for adapting and taking control of the series from that point.
“Truth be told, it’s no time to be disappointed. You take your lessons, you take your a-- whooping they handed us, and you move on," Irving said post-game." It's a basketball journey, obviously, you want to keep playing but they put a halt to that and they deserve the series, they played like they wanted it.
"It was a great opponent for me to play against for the rest of my career because I won't forget something like this. The taste of feeling defeat in this type of style, being down 1-4 I haven't felt so you know for me it's just moving on to the next thing, and seeing where that ends up."
"For me, it's just moving onto the next thing."
— NBA TV (@NBATV) May 9, 2019
- Kyrie shares his thoughts after the Celtics series comes to an end.#NBAPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/yegKhXHxrp
For Irving, Game 5 capped off an underwhelming second-round series, recording just 15 points on 6-of-21 shooting and 1-of-7 from three, adding one assist and one rebound.
Over five games against the Bucks, Irving averaged 20.4 points per game, 6.4 assists and 4.4 rebounds, shooting 35.6 percent from the field and 21.9 percent from the three-point line, leaving plenty to ponder as the off-season kicks in.
Kyrie Irving is the first Celtics player to take at least 15 shots and shoot less than 40 percent in 4 straight playoff games since Sam Jones in 1966.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 9, 2019
h/t @EliasSports pic.twitter.com/78CgyBl59h
"Just a lot of lessons to take from the season. From day 1 to training camp, all the way till now," Irving added.
"It really comes down to great team basketball who's playing better at a certain time of year, the connectivity and the able to respond. They showed all year why they were who they were and they were very dominating in this series after Game 1."
"They played hard, they did unbelievable things with their rotations and Mike [Budenholzer] put them in great positions to be successful as well as guys coming in off the bench playing well, playing steady. You got Ersan [Ilyasova] and George [Hill], they're just leading that second unit and I think Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and Khris [Middleton] did a great job leading that group as well as E-Bled [Eric Bledsoe] coming in filling in where he could as well.
"I think collectively as a group, they outplayed us as a group and I give credit to them because they came after Game 1 getting punched in the mouth and they responded the way a team that deserves to win should."
With Irving set to become an unrestricted free agent in the off-season, the conversation now shifts to whether he will return to the group who entered the season with title aspirations.
Has he played his last game in Boston?