Martin’s Moment: Kyrie Irving Goes For The Double Nickel
This week’s moment is brought to you by Kyrie Irving.
On Wednesday night the Cleveland Cavaliers, in the midst of a five-game winning streak, went up against the Portland Trail Blazers without the services of LeBron James. This would appear to be a disadvantage on the surface.
But not when Kyrie Irving shoots 17-for-36 from the field, 11-for-19 from the three-point line, and adds four rebounds and five assists to a career-high 55-point effort that led the Cavs to a 99-94 win.
Irving played with the kind of mindset that Cleveland sorely needed without LeBron on the floor, but it was more than that. He reached a certain zone of playmaking that put his entire creative scoring arsenal on display. He scored on step backs, floaters, shots off the dribble, and oh yeah, 33 of his 55 points came from three-pointers. He scored 16 of his 55 points in the fourth quarter, which included his 11th and final three-pointer over LaMarcus Aldridge that would put the Cavaliers up 97-94 and ultimately seal the victory.
Before Wednesday, Kyrie’s highest scoring game was 44 points against the Charlotte Bobcats last season. He also now owns the highest individual scoring game this season, topping Klay Thompson and Mo Williams who both put up 52 in January. Irving’s 55-er is now second only to LeBron James in Cavaliers franchise history. Kyrie passes Allen Iverson’s 54 as the highest scoring game in the Cleveland arena, and now joins Iverson, Tiny Archibald, Gilbert Arenas, Fred Brown, Adrian Dantley, Lou Hudson, Brandon Jennings, Pete Maravich, Earl Monroe, Calvin Murphy, Tony Parker
, Oscar Robertson, David Thompson, Dwayne Wade, and Deron Willi
ams as the only players 6-foot-5 and under to drop a double-nickel.
Join LeBron James in doing his Kyrie double-nickel dance:
And finally, this from ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, who had a fascinating takeaway/reaction to what Kyrie did on Wednesday:
Windhorst: “Yeah, he had Dwyane Wade, but LeBron’s never played with a talented scorer (Irving) like this before.”
— ESPN Cleveland (@ESPNCleveland) January 30, 2015
That’s a conversation for some other time, but feel free to
comment with your thoughts.
Only innate scorers come up with a double nickel game, hence the aforementioned list. Kyrie Irving is by far the best point guard LeBron James has played with in his NBA career. We know this to be true.
But to somewhat echo Windhorst (not saying I completely agree with his claim) LeBron has never had a teammate drop 55 points in his career. What does that say about Kyrie Irving? I think there’s still plenty of time to decide.
