And it put Irving’s vaccination status in the spotlight again.
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland and I’m in awe of Kyrie Irving’s last few games.
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Another big game for the road warrior
The Nets traveled to Orlando yesterday, which meant that Kyrie Irving was eligible to play—and he had the kind of game that showed why his teammates are so eager to get him back on the court on a full-time basis.
Irving set a new Nets franchise record with 60 points, going 20-for-31 from the field (8-of-12 from three and 12-of-13 from the line), with six rebounds, four assists and four steals in a 150–108 win. (Here is his full highlight reel.)
Kyrie did most of his damage in the first half, scoring 41 before the break (including 25 in the second quarter alone). He had 16 in the first quarter as the Nets set a new franchise record with 48 points.
Irving’s big game came the day after Karl-Anthony Towns erupted for 60 points against the Spurs, setting a Timberwolves franchise record. There have been 16 50-point games in the NBA this season and half of them have occurred since Feb. 28. That includes Nets teammate Kevin Durant dropping 53 against the Knicks on Sunday and Kyrie’s 50 against the Hornets last week. The other 50-point games during that span belong to LeBron James (two of them), Jayson Tatum and Ja Morant.
Irving, likewise, has been on a tear in recent weeks. In his last five games (dating back to Feb. 26), he’s averaging 37.8 points.
Inevitably, Kyrie putting on a show like that places a spotlight on his vaccination status and his ineligibility for Nets home games. As we inch closer to the postseason, the prospect of Irving being forced (or, realistically, choosing, through his refusal to get the shot) to sit out half of a playoff series looms large.
That’s why the Nets are waging a PR battle to lobby New York mayor Eric Adams to drop the city’s vaccine mandate for private-sector employers. Irving made a point of buying tickets to watch Duke at Barclays Center on Saturday and watch the Nets against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden the next day, drawing attention to the fact that unvaccinated fans can now attend games in the city. Durant called the mandate “ridiculous” after that Knicks game and then issued a statement on Monday in which he didn’t backtrack at all. And some prominent NBA voices are joining the chorus of support for Irving. ESPN announcer Doris Burke said during Sunday’s broadcast that the sight of Irving in the stands was “visual absurdity” and LeBron said in a tweet that the situation “literally makes ABSOLUTELY ZERO SENSE.”
But as Chris Mannix wrote on Monday, the mayor can’t simply tweak the rules for Irving. The mandate, which was implemented in December by Adams’s predecessor, Bill de Blasio, applies to every employer in the city with more than one employee—some 184,000 businesses. Scrapping the law in the face of pressure from basketball fans, or, even worse, making an exception for Irving, would be a slap in the face to hundreds of thousands of people who chose to abide by the mandate in order to work in-person in New York.
This story is only going to snowball as the games become more meaningful. It’s incredible to think that a standoff between a star point guard and a mayor could very well decide how far the Nets advance in the playoffs.
The best of Sports Illustrated
As they prepare to take on Murray State in the men’s NCAA tournament, Alex Prewitt spoke with the three San Francisco teammates whose connection has not been broken by the war between their countries:
“The trio bonded quickly. They ate together at every team meal, yakking away in Russian about their families and home lives. … They trekked off campus to a Russian grocery, grabbing ingredients for a New Year’s Day feast of Olivier potato salad and other traditional dishes. ‘[To have] two guys from the same area, with the same culture, it’s cool,’ [Volodymyr] Markovetskyy says, ‘because you feel like they understand you.’”
Ben Pickman has eight teams in the women’s tournament who could end up making Cinderella runs. … On the other end of the spectrum, these are the five top men’s seeds that Kevin Sweeney thinks will crash out early. … In the latest episode of SI Weekly, Robert Sanchez and Julie Kliegman join John Gonzalez to discuss Lia Thomas and the debate over transgender athletes. … Stephanie Apstein was at Red Sox camp and wrote about why Boston had one of MLB’s lowest vaccination rates and what the team is doing to change that. … Chris Herring’s The Playmaker newsletter debuted yesterday.
SI’s Morning Madness newsletter is back. Our free, daily NCAA tournament newsletter has everything you need to stay up-to-date and give you an edge when filling out your brackets. Sign up for free at SI.com/newsletters and read today’s edition here.
Around the Sports World
Unvaccinated Yankees and Mets players are also not allowed to play in home games under New York’s current vaccine mandate. … Baker Mayfield posted a letter to social media thanking Browns fans as rumors that he may be traded heat up. … Fresh off acquiring him from the A’s, the Braves have inked Matt Olson to a big contract extension. … The A’s continued their fire sale by reportedly shipping Matt Chapman to the Blue Jays. … Chelsea’s upcoming FA Cup opponent called the London club’s request to play the game without fans “bizarre.” … Coach Steve Nash is still hopeful that Ben Simmons can debut for the Nets in the regular season. … Ryan Turell, who starred at D-III Yeshiva University, is declaring for the NBA draft in hopes of becoming the league’s first orthodox Jewish player. … A federal judge ruled that minor league baseball players are full-time MLB employees and awarded nearly $2 million in damages.
The top five...
… college hoops moments from last night:
5. Sixty-three-year-old Indiana coach Mike Woodson hitting a three in warmups
4. Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams’s emotional speech about being left out of the NCAA tournament
3. Jordan Geronimo’s two putback dunks for Indiana against Wyoming
2. Two more big dunks by Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis in the Hoosiers’ win
1. Texas Southern celebrating its win over Texas A&M–Corpus Christi in the opening round
SIQ
The late Howard Schnellenberger was born on this day in 1934. He is known as one of the best college football coaches in history, having won a national title at Miami, turned around a struggling Louisville program and built the Florida Atlantic program from scratch. But did you know that he did all that after failing in the NFL? Which NFL team was Schnellenberger the head coach of for two years?
- Colts
- Dolphins
- Chargers
- Browns
Check tomorrow’s newsletter for the answer.
Yesterday’s SIQ: Which city did not have a professional baseball team in 1869: Irvington, N.J., Washington, D.C., Hartford or Troy, N.Y.?
Answer: Hartford. The loosely formed league featured three teams based in Brooklyn, two in Philadelphia, two in Washington and one each in Cincinnati, Baltimore, Cleveland, Troy and Irvington.
The Cleveland and Irvington teams each played fewer than 10 games. Cincinnati had a perfect record (29–0) against fellow professional teams but did not win the championship under the convoluted rules of the time.
The Red Stockings were a powerhouse, though. Including exhibitions and games against amateur clubs, they went 64–0, often scoring dozens of runs in a single game. They won 80–5 against the Mutual Club of Springfield, Mass., on June 9 and 85–7 against Cream City of Milwaukee on July 30. They also embarked on a historic trip to the West Coast in September, taking the transcontinental railroad (which had been completed just months earlier) to play games against teams in San Francisco.
Despite the lopsided and disjointed schedule, baseball’s experiment with professionalism was a success, and, in 1871, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was founded, the first fully professional baseball league. This version of the Red Stockings had folded by then, though.
From the Vault: March 16, 1981
Honestly, I just wanted to feature this cover because I think it’s a great photo of Rollie Fingers’s excellent mustache, but I suppose we should talk some baseball, too.
When the Brewers traded for Fingers before the 1981 season, they did so hoping the reliable reliever would help them secure their first playoff appearance in franchise history. Milwaukee had had some good teams in recent years (averaging 91.3 wins over the past three seasons) but couldn’t win a strong AL East.
As Ron Fimrite wrote in the story accompanying the cover above, the Brewers struggled to hold onto leads in 1980. “Struggled” is putting it mildly. They lost 29 out of 31 games in which they were leading or tied after the seventh inning. Rarely is it so easy to pinpoint a team’s weakness. And so they set out to bolster the bullpen in hopes of avoiding such late-game collapses.
Brewers general manager Harry Dalton went to the winter meetings in Dallas that offseason with the intention of swinging a deal with the Padres for Fingers. He and manager Buck Rodgers had already decided that Milwaukee outfielder Sixto Lezcano would be a good guy to build a deal around if the Brewers moved a young Paul Molitor from second base to center field. But the Cardinals beat them to the punch and pulled off an 11-player trade to bring Fingers to St. Louis. Dalton started scheming for other ways to get relief help but then the very next day, the Cards traded for Cubs reliever Bruce Sutter, opening the door for another Fingers trade. Four days after had been acquired by the Cardinals, Fingers was dealt to the Brewers.
Fingers ended up being everything Milwaukee had hoped he would be in 1981. He led the majors with 28 saves and had a career-best 1.04 ERA, winning both the Cy Young Award and MVP. Fellow pitcher Pete Vukovich, also acquired in the Fingers deal, was Milwaukee’s best starter in ’81 and would win the Cy Young in ’82. The third player acquired from St. Louis in the trade was catcher Ted Simmons, who was an All-Star in his first season in Milwaukee.
The Brewers did end up making their first postseason appearance in Fingers’s first year. Because of the player strike that disrupted the season, the division winners from the first and second halves of the season qualified for the playoffs. Milwaukee lost to the Yankees, three games to two, in the first ALDS.
Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.