Kyrie Irving on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s free throws: ‘It’s getting ridiculous at this point’

The Celtics kept fouling Giannis Antetokounmpo in their Game 2 loss to the Bucks last night.

Kyrie Irving sounded agitated about that.

Irving (warning: profanity in the above video):

I mean, it’s inevitable. Guy comes down almost six times in a row and gets free throws. What are you really going to do? It’s slowing the game down. So, the run that you would hope to make in a quarter like that doesn’t happen. Shot 22 on the game. I mean, it’s getting ridiculous at this point. It’s just slowing the f—ing game down.

Hopefully, we can even out the free throws – not just in the fourth quarter.

The refs have a difficult job. We have a difficult job. Obviously, I can sit up here and can complain. We know the disparity and what it is. But I’m not going to put all the emphasis on the refereeing. I think that there are a lot of controllable thing on our end that we can be better at. Obviously, the officiating is going to be part of it. Hopefully, you wish that things could go you way. But they don’t. We have to be able to respond in a better circumstance. We’ve just got to respond better, and I think that we will do that going into Game 4.

Though Irving swore and had the tone of someone complaining about officiating, he didn’t really say anything egregious. He actually put the onus on the Celtics, not the referees.

As he should have. Antetokounmpo earned his 22 free throws last night. Boston just had no way to slow him other than fouling.

Al Horford remains a good defender of Antetokounmpo, but Horford was especially effective in Game 1 because of the Celtics’ excellent help defense. Antetokounmpo has learned he can’t spin and probe as much against Boston. He’s now aggressively attacking the rim before help can slow him. Though Horford has handled that OK, other defenders – Marcus Morris, Jayson Tatum, Semi Ojeleye – can’t keep up. So, they keep fouling.

If the Celtics stop fouling, they might allow Antetokounmpo to shoot better from the field. There’s no easy answer against a superstar like him.

Also: I find Irving’s complaint about the halting flow strange. The free throws definitely helped the Bucks. But I’m not sure how the game’s long duration benefited one team over the other.