He showed in his Cleveland days with Bron, when the game was on the line, he proved to be a decent team defender and a pretty good on-ball-in-iso defender. Showed this in the Olympics too. And in the fourth quarter against the C's, he was working hard, generating steals and deflections, maintaining verticality when bigger guys were driving on him, etc. It was pretty cool to see what he's capable of on that end when he's locked in.

Problem is, of course, there are soooooo many games where he just doesn't give a shit about the defensive side of the ball, lol. Even in playoff games-- I'd even say in much of the first half of the Celtics game, haha. He's just looking to grab the ball and get out in transition, so if it's not a passing lane he can leap into, he's inclined to play matador defense or not execute his rotation.

We'll see if Kyrie can maintain defensive effort with any consistency this series. History points to "no", generally, lol, but they'll likely need it to beat the Celtics.