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Danny Ainge Responds To Kyrie Irving’s ‘Subtle Racism’ Claim

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10 May 2012: President of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics Danny Ainge is seen prior to the Boston Celtics 83-80 victory over the Atlanta Hawks, in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference first-round playoff series, at the TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving is all set to make his playoff return to Boston (where he once said he wanted to play for the rest of his career) on Friday night.

While Kyrie is bound to get a bunch of boo’s during the game, he’s worried about dealing with racism from the Boston crowd.

“I mean it’s not my first time being an opponent in Boston,” Irving said earlier this week, via NESN.com. “So, you know, I’m just looking forward to competing with my teammates, and hopefully we just keep it strictly basketball. You know there’s no belligerence or any racism going on, subtle racism and people yelling (expletive) from the crowd. But even if it is, it’s part of the nature of the game and just gonna focus on what we can control.”

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While Irving claims he’s heard some racist things in his games at the TD Garden, Celtics GM Danny Ainge says he has never heard such claims in his long time involved with the Celtics organization.

“I think that we take those kind of things seriously,” Ainge said, via NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg. “I never heard any of that, from any player that I’ve ever played with in my 26 years in Boston. I never heard that before from Kyrie and I talked to him quite a bit.”

The NBA Playoffs have already been full of acts from unruly fans. Just last night, Russell Westbrook had popcorn thrown on him, and Trae Young was spit on by a fan. In both instances, the fan has been banned for life from the NBA.

Hopefully the Boston fans keep it together a little bit during their Kyrie Irving taunts. But would anyone really be surprised if we see some Bostonians take it too far?

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