Anticipated and Actual Boos on Irving's November 2019 Return

In November 2019, shortly after Kyrie Irving signed with the Brooklyn Nets, he returned to TD Garden for a Nets–Celtics matchup and encountered a vocal negative reception from fans. Local media coverage in the run-up to the visit included commentary from former Celtics; Paul Pierce publicly said, "He deserves [to be booed]," signaling that high-profile ex-players would not discourage fan displeasure [4]. The November 2019 return combined in-arena boos captured by broadcast cameras and social-media sharing of reaction clips, establishing a pattern in which live fan reactions and subsequent online amplification fed one another. The event did not involve a single dramatic on-court transgression by Irving; instead, it was a collective, anticipatory fan response rooted in the July 2019 departure and the Oct. 4, 2018 remark that Irving would re-sign in Boston [8][2]. Media outlets reported both the boos and the commentary by ex-players, linking crowd sentiment to the narrative of a perceived broken promise [4][8].

The November 2019 return was the first major in-arena demonstration of fan anger after Irving left for Brooklyn, turning the abstract grievance about a broken promise into live, repeatable behavior (boos) that could be captured on broadcasts and social platforms [4][8]. The event normalized hostile receptions for future returns and primed commentators and fans to interpret later symbolic acts through the betrayal frame.

After the November 2019 boos, media coverage continued to reference the episode when documenting Irving's subsequent visits to Boston; the atmosphere remained adversarial and was visible again during the December 2020 smudging and the May 2021 and April 2022 on-court incidents [3][2][1]. There is no public record in these sources of formal reconciliation efforts between Irving and Celtics leadership following the 2019 return; instead, the pattern of hostile crowd reception continued [4][3].