What the basketball world witnessed Kyrie Irving do against the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night will be forever remembered as one of the greatest performances in the franchise’s history.
Irving’s career-high of 55 points single-handedly took down a Western Conference juggernaut, 99-94. No LeBron James, no problem. Irving had it from here. The two-time All-Star put a validation stamp on securing his third All-Star nod.
To put his outing in perspective: He outscored the rest of his team, his 55 points were the second most points scored by a Cavalier (James’ 56 points at Toronto on 3/20/05), those were the most points scored inside The Q, it was the most points scored by any player this season, he nailed a career and franchise record 11 threes, he attempted a franchise record 19 three-pointers and he was 10-of-10 from the charity stripe.
That translates to 93 points in the last two games for the offensive assassin.
Irving went toe-to-toe with one of the most electrifying offenses in the league and yet it was he, one man with one historic outing whom surgically carved up the Trail Blazers’ defense to shreds.
If it wasn’t for Irving’s superhuman accomplishments, there’s no way the Cavaliers would have managed to be in the ball game.
His help was scarce, to say the least. The rest of the Cavaliers shot an abysmal 17-of-49 from the field, producing 44 points.
The third member of the Big Three, Kevin Love, went three-for-15 and clanked his last 11 shots.
Despite his prodigious feat, Irving didn’t want to talk about himself. It was his night, but all he wanted to do was compliment his teammates.
“Our bigs are doing a great job of just coming in and screening in transition,” he said. “[They’re] being open and being willing screeners every single time down. It just makes my job a lot easier to come down and make an easy decision to either pull up or attack the rim or drop off to our bigs.”
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