CLEVELAND _ It was a night when Kyrie Irving's pre-game fist bump instead of a hug with LeBron James mattered, until it didn't.
It was a night when Cavaliers fans unleashed their boos on Irving, the star who didn't want to play for them any more, then had their breath briefly taken away by a horrific injury.
It was a night when the fragility of the game came all too clearly into focus when Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward fractured his left ankle on the opening night of the NBA season.
Irving's return to Cleveland after requesting a trade and being dealt to the Celtics on Aug. 22 didn't invoke the same venom from Cavs fans that James felt when he came back with the Miami Heat in December, 2010.
But his Celtics' debut could leave a scar, and it had nothing to do with jilted Northeast Ohio fans or the Cavs' 102-99 victory at Quicken Loans Arena.
With 6:45 left in the first quarter, Irving threw a lob pass to Hayward, who was positioned in between James and the Cavs' Jae Crowder. Hayward couldn't catch it and landed awkwardly, his left leg bent under him at the knee.
But the sight that left both Celtics and Cavs players shaken was Hayward's ankle bent sideways.
In pregame, Irving greeted the Cavs' Iman Shumpert, his closest friend on the team. He was approached by Dwyane Wade and James, but wasn't overtly friendly. The boos during the Celtics' introductions weren't overtly angry.
In the first quarter, Irving was booed every time he brought the ball up the court. When he returned to action with 10:48 mark in the second quarter, the hoots were more scattered. An Irving technical foul for complaining to an official with 11:15 left in the third quarter got a rise out of the crowd. But by the second half, the sounds in the Q reminded one more of a haunted house on Halloween. And Irving wasn't the only Celtic who wasn't liked.
Angst over Irving turned to worry over a victory.
Irving had a few moments where he showed the dazzling form from his six years with the Cavs, drawing a few oohs on a drive to the hoop with about 3:00 left in the second quarter. But he didn't make his first 3-pointer until 6:48 remained in the third quarter and didn't really get going until the fourth.
The reception could have been uglier after Irving recently called Boston a "real, live sports city," in a pregame interview with the Boston Globe. He tried to explain that away at shootaround, saying he wasn't comparing his new basketball home to Cleveland, but merely taken by the sight as he drove in for the first time.
It seemed like a weak attempt not to offend The Land and Irving was prepared for whatever the fans had in store.
"I've seen the end of being down there on that other bench and fans booing the opponents and understanding that Cleveland fans want their home team to win," he said at morning shootaround. "So I expect the same thing."
As for blocking out the noise, Irving said, "It's pretty easy. Yeah, because you kind of know the truth about all this so it's easy to filter through all this."
Irving admirers didn't get their chance to thank him for making the game-winning shot in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals that ended Cleveland's 52-year championship drought. The Cavs' video tribute for Irving never played, with the team saying it was to go when the time felt right and that moment never presented itself.
That wasn't all that was missing. The intense emotion expected between the Cavs and Celtics, who earned the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs but were ousted by the Cavs in the conference finals, wasn't there. At least not for long. It was sucked out by the loss of Hayward, the team's prized free agent.
At one point in the first half, James went to the Celtics locker room to check on Hayward, ESPN's Brian Windhorst reported, as did injured Cavs point guard Isaiah Thomas, the ex-Celtic who recruited Hayward to Boston.
The NBA started the season earlier to lessen the grind. Back-to-back games were cut down to an average of 14.4 per team, compared to 16.3 last season. Four games in five nights were eliminated. And one of the biggest names on one of the league's most storied franchises was still lost in unimaginable fashion.
That the Cavs had an 18-point second quarter lead disappear, with the Celtics taking a 71-69 lead with 4 seconds left in the third quarter, was a tribute to the visitors and their coach Brad Stevens. Perhaps the Celtics can survive a long-term injury to Hayward, if their promising young players grow faster than some expect.
Irving reaching the heights he left Cleveland to seek could also have something to do with that.
