BOSTON -- No time was wasted. As the lights dimmed and the player introduction video began to roll on the giant screen in TD Garden, the heckling began. The chants were loud, the booing was relentless, and signs denouncing the Boston Celtics' former star were abundant.
"Where is Kyrie?" Celtics fans chanted.
"Kyrie sucks!" they screeched nearly every time Jarrett Allen went to the free throw line.
The target of the taunting, Kyrie Irving, was hundreds of miles away. Irving has missed the past seven games because of a right shoulder impingement and did not make the trip with his Brooklyn Nets teammates to face his former team.