Kyrie Irving has played with a face mask before. It went pretty well.
The broken bone in Kyrie Irving’s face won’t keep him out for too long. But he’ll look noticeably different upon his return, which could reportedly come as soon as Tuesday night’s game in Brooklyn.
As The Vertical reported Sunday, Irving plans to be fitted for a protective mask so that he can play through his facial fracture. The Celtics guard will have to wear it for two weeks, league sources told the site.
The idea of playing basketball while wearing a mask may seem burdensome, but this isn’t actually new territory for Irving.
During his second season in the NBA, Irving broke a bone in his jaw during a game in Milwaukee on December 14, 2012. It was the first game of a back-to-back against the Bucks and the Knicks, so the then-20-year-old Cavaliers guard had to fly separately from his team to get fitted for a mask. Irving reportedly arrived in New York less than three hours before the start of the game.
On four hours of sleep and wearing a black mask that shielded two thirds of his face, he promptly went on to put up a career high in points under the lights of Madison Square Garden.
Irving’s 41 points on 15-for-25 shooting (as well as five rebounds and five assists) weren’t enough to get the then-fledgling, LeBron-less Cavaliers squad past a playoffs-bound Knicks team. But his 17 points in the fourth quarter made it very close.
The unique look also spawned a number of super hero-inspired nicknames, from Zorro to The Dark Night. The NBA also released a dramatically-scored slow-motion video of his career game with the mask titled, “Kyrie Irving: Phantom of the Garden.”
According to Cleveland.com, Irving wore the black plastic mask because the clear material preferred by the NBA needs 18 hours to dry after being fitted.
Irving continued on with the clear model for 18 more games, bookended by another efficient 40-point outburst against his future team. His 15 fourth-quarter points even led Cleveland to a win.
In his 19 games wearing the mask that season, Irving shot 47.5 percent from the floor, 39.8 percent from three-point range, and averaged 24.5 points per game. Those figures were all significantly higher than his full-season averages: 45.2 percent, 39.1 percent, and 22.5 point per game, respectively. The stretch led to Irving being selected to his first NBA All-Star Game.
“I enjoyed playing in it, just the look of it,” Irving told reporters a season later in 2014, as LeBron James began donning a similar black mask to protect his broken nose. He did, however, note that the mask does impair one’s peripheral vision.
The NBA went on to request that James also switch to a clear mask, leaving the black mask with a short-lived, though fondly remembered, legacy in the NBA.
Given the time they’ve had to prepare, the Celtics will presumably have a clear mask ready for Irving’s return. Celtics coach Brad Stevens told reporters that the guard was visiting with a face specialist Sunday, according to ESPN.
Ironically, if Irving’s first game back does come Tuesday night in Brooklyn, it will be just a borough away from his famous black mask game. At this point, however, it might be a tougher ask for him to set another career high.
