Moments after the Celtics had their four-game winning streak snapped with a 115-99 loss in Miami last week, before the locker room had even been opened to the media, Kyrie Irving emerged in the bowels of American Airlines Arena, his jersey stripped off, jogging and dribbling a ball down the hallway. He was being led to Miami's practice court to get some extra shots up. A handful of reporters waited in the locker room for Irving to return. He was up there shooting for maybe 30 minutes. 

"It's my job," Irving said when he was asked why about the extra post-game shooting. "I just wanted to get some extra shots and feel good going into the next game. We're staying in Miami tonight, and I'd rather be in here than be out in Miami right now." 

A lot of players do this. Former NBA player Raja Bell, now my CBS Sports colleague, said he used to get up extra shots after games all the time. But Bell was never in the position Kyrie is in with the Celtics, which is to say he was never the guy that teammates were looking to as a prime example, never the unquestioned best player on a team expecting to compete for a championship -- no less a team comprised largely of young players in need of guidance from a guy who has "been there before." 

Irving is that guy in Boston. He's the only player on the roster who has ever played in the Finals, let alone won a championship, in a Game 7, in which he stuck the game-winning 3-pointer in the face of the unanimous MVP to take down maybe the greatest team ever. His clout is untouchable, his position atop the Celtics' food chain unequivocal, and as the Celtics have struggled to put any kind of real momentum together all season long, he has leaned on that equity to send message after message. He has called out teammates. He has preached about the road ahead, a road only he has traveled. Via Celtics.com:

"We are lacking [experience] and because of that we have a lot of learning to do," Irving said after Boston's loss in Orlando. "So we have a lot of ground to make up in that aspect and it gets tough. It gets hard. You have to think. You have to do the right things. You can't gamble and think that it is going to be the winning play. You have to be able to play through the whole 48 minutes no matter what is going on and hold your head high when you make mistakes. When your job is called upon, you have to do it to the best of your ability. You have to come in and make an impact from the minutes that you are playing out there. You have to appreciate being out there and just competing. It doesn't matter who you are going against. It matters the type of preparation you have. What you are going out trying to accomplish. What's the big picture? What are we doing here? These are a lot of things that I don't think that some my teammates have faced of this every single day. It is not easy to be great.

"So the things that you are doing that you have done your whole entire career of being able to coast by certain situations and gotten away with in your youth and stuff like that, being on a championship ball club, you can't get away with that. I know from the majority of the fact we are better than most teams in this league. It is just about going out and proving it every single night and demanding it and actually showing it. Until we do that every single night and realize that our depth is a positive, and all the wishes and could haves and should have done this and done that, once that goes out the window then we will be better," he continued. "Until then we will keep having these ups and downs and these lulls of going against teams on the road and they just know they can take advantage of us down the stretch when this group is in or that group is out. It has to be a cohesion and I have to be better as the leader of the team of doing so and making sure these guys have more experience in certain situations like that. I put it on me of just being better."

Then this, from the Boston Herald:

"I mean, we had nothing to lose last year," Irving said. "We had nothing to lose, and everybody could play free and do whatever they wanted and nobody had any expectations. We were supposed to be at a certain point, we surpassed that. Young guys were supposed to be at a certain point, they surpassed that. ...

"...We come into this season, expectations, and it's real. Everyone from the coaching staff to the players, it's very much real every single day, so that's new. It's tough. It's hard, you know, so I think that what we're facing now is nothing compared to being on that stage trying to get a gold trophy." 

One can only imagine what Irving was thinking as he sat on the bench in street clothes on Monday, when the Celtics lost their third straight game, this time to the Brooklyn Nets 109-102 in a game in which they trailed by as many as 27. Entering Tuesday, Boston sits as the Eastern Conference's No. 5 seed, as many games in the loss column -- six -- from the No. 1 seed as they are from being out of the playoffs entirely. 

Nobody expects the Celtics to miss the playoffs, obviously. I talked with a scout last week that still believes they're the best team in the East. Still, they are clearly falling short of expectations -- and to Irving's point, it's the expectations that make this Irving/Celtics dynamic so interesting. On the surface, it seems strange that a guy who missed all of last year's playoffs would be seen as the only guy capable of teaching a team how to get to a place they largely made without him. 

But like Irving said, it's different playing with house money. And besides that, they're not playing to make a fun run to the conference finals this season. They're playing for a title. Different ballgame. Forget the leadership aspect -- from purely a basketball standpoint, Kyrie is the player who can carry the Celtics. These days, to even be considered a title contender you needs to have at least two of those guys -- unless you want to foolishly talk yourself into the Lakers being a contender with LeBron. The only championships that LeBron has ever won came with Dwyane Wade and, of course, Irving, by his side. 

Whether someone on the Celtics can emerge as that dependable No. 2, at a championship level, on a championship stage, is one of the many questions suddenly surrounding this team. There are even questions about Irving, to be fair. He's had a sensational season to this point, maybe the best overall of his career, but he's never been "the guy" on a championship team. As the Celtics have found success of late, it has been through ball-movement -- prior to these last two losses, they led the league in assists per game over the previous 21-game stretch. But come playoff time, if the Celtics haven't found their stride, will he fall back on relying too much on his own scoring ability and forget what makes the Celtics potentially great with all their weapons?

It's interesting, because that may be the one thing Irving can learn from these Celtics. Yes, he's been a champion and played in three straight Finals, but he comes from the school of great players dominating as the blueprint for success -- namely he and LeBron. Last season's Celtics found success together. A different hero every night. No defined star, but anyone capable of being one on any given night. Again, Irving has been to the mountaintop. But the Celtics made it pretty high without him. 

From that standpoint, one has to wonder if the Celtics ever get tired of the preaching. It's not condescending on Irving's part, not to me at least, but look at a guy like Jaylen Brown, who was a budding All-Star last season and now, on top of having to make sense of a major adjustment to a bench role that has brought with it a reduction in opportunities across the board, he has to hear how he, and basically all the young guys, don't understand what it takes to win at the highest level. Take this for what it's worth:

This isn't intended to stir up drama or anything of the sort. People are doing this with the 76ers now. Every time someone says something about their role or that the team is playing "soft" or whatever, it must mean someone is unhappy and they all hate each other and someone wants to be traded. Guys get asked questions and they answer them, oftentimes in a cloud of post-game frustration, and we all go off and run with their words. This is not that. 

It is, rather, just a genuine observation. Many of the Celtics are dealing with their own personal frustrations this season. Again, Brown has had the toughest adjustment of anyone. Tatum hasn't had quite the sophomore season people expected. Gordon Hayward had to be removed from the starting lineup and has been a shell of his former self since returning from the ankle injury that kept him out all last season. After dazzling in last year's playoffs, Terry Rozier has gone from everyone's favorite breakout star who was deserving of his own team to just, well, a solid backup. As you're trying to get your own game together, you can understand how it would be hard to constantly hear that you're the reason the team can't get its game together. 

Give Irving credit: Prior to Boston's loss in Brooklyn on Monday, Irving, perhaps realizing the strain some of his teammates were, or are, beginning to feel, said he won't be doing any more public criticizing this season:

Is this the answer? Who knows? Some would say that when a team as talented as the Celtics is underperforming, it needs to be called out. You make a lot of money to be good at basketball, and the Celtics, flat out, haven't been good enough at basketball this season. But neither have the Warriors. Or the Jazz. Or the Rockets (until recently). Or a lot of other teams relative to expectations. The most important thing for the Celtics, who are a virtual lock to make the playoffs, is that they're playing optimal basketball come April and May. If they're doing that, they'll have a good chance to be playing in June.

But it's not that easy. This isn't the Eastern Conference that even Irving is used to -- the one the Cavs basically got to walk through to the Finals. This is the new Eastern Conference, which, at least at the top, is tough as hell. Milwaukee, Toronto, Philadelphia, even the Pacers would be a difficult second-round matchup. In fact, if the Celtics don't get on their horse and move up from where they are now, they'll have to play one of those teams in the first round. Kyrie might not be doing it publicly anymore, but you can bet he'll continue to remind his teammates of this at every turn. We'll see just how intently they're all listening.