Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving responded to online trolls by calling his critics “cockroaches” during a recent Twitch stream.
“It’s but so long y’all can say the same jokes,” Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving warned the Twitch community. “But so long.”
Irving, who has become a reviled figure among the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics fanbases, mocked his detractors during a Twitch stream of Grand Theft Auto.
Irving mocked trolls who harass him by asking him where he is, telling him to go back to Cleveland. Boston fans seem to let Irving know frequently that the city now thoroughly despises him. Irving called these critical NBA fans “cockroaches.”
It’s not a surprising sentiment, considering that Kyrie Irving made it clear that he wanted out of Cleveland and Boston when he decided his tenure ran its course in each respective city. The Cavs are a little further behind him, but the hatred for and from Celtics fans burned brightly in the 2022 postseason, reaching high temperatures when Irving flipped off Celtics fans at TD Garden.
Kyrie Irving sounds off on Cavs, Celtics fans harassing him online
Irving had even more ammunition to fire at his enemies on Twitch, but this time, it was to remind everyone that the Knicks aren’t the only basketball team running New York.
“I would never agree that the Knicks run New York as long as Brooklyn’s there,” Irving said. “If the Nets were still in New Jersey, I would definitely say the Knicks run New York, but sorry bro, we in Brooklyn, we right over there.”
It’s also worth noting that the Nets share the Barclays Center with the New York Liberty, who made the WNBA Playoffs in 2021, feature the 2021 Rookie of the Year Michaela Onyenwere, and stunned in their 2022 season opener against the Connecticut Sun.
The Knicks don’t exclusively own New York basketball, and considering that the Nets and Liberty were the teams that recently made the playoffs, Brooklyn basketball is deserving of more respect.
But it’s just as likely that Nets detractors were making Knicks comments just to get under Irving’s skin — and if that was the case, it worked like a charm.