Tag: Irving

Kyrie Irving sounds ready to keep chasing NBA titles in Dallas

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Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving pauses on the court in front of Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, left, during the first half of Game 5 of the NBA basketball finals, Monday, June 17, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

DALLAS — Kyrie Irving is a year away from having the option to leave the Dallas Mavericks, and at that point would be closing in on his longest stint anywhere since asking out of Cleveland, where he was drafted, in 2017.

Yet the mercurial guard sounded as if Dallas could be his basketball home well beyond 2025 after losing the NBA Finals in five games to the Boston Celtics in his first full season with co-star Luka Doncic.

“I see an opportunity for us to really build our future in a positive manner where this is almost like a regular thing for us, and we’re competing for championships,” Irving said after Dallas’ 106-88 loss in Game 5.

Irving jilted Boston in free agency in 2019 and has been steadfastly booed by Celtics fans since then. His 3 1/2 seasons in Brooklyn were filled with mostly self-inflicted drama, to the point that he finally asked for a trade after doing the same to break away from LeBron James and the Cavaliers.

When the Mavericks acquired the eight-time All-Star at the deadline last year, Irving’s reputation around the league was in tatters. Things have changed in 16 months.

READ: Doncic, Irving can’t deliver for Mavericks in NBA Finals clincher

“From a spiritual standpoint, I think I enjoyed this journey more than any other season, just because of the redemption arc and being able to learn as much as I did about myself and my teammates and the organization and the people that I’m around,” Irving said. “It’s a lot of good people here, so it makes coming to work a lot of fun.”

Doncic’s player option is a year after Irving’s, following the 2025-26 season. And every other rotation player in the playoffs except for guard Derrick Jones Jr. is under contract next season.

The Mavericks don’t have much room to maneuver under the salary cap, but they will have the nagging question of whether a more dangerous third scoring option is the missing piece.

The 25-year-old Doncic is entering his prime in a difficult NBA Western Conference, with two trips at least to the West finals in the past three seasons.

But Dallas was a surprise team both times, and couldn’t stick around past five games. The next level would be getting this far without being a surprise, perhaps as the favorite to win the title.

Such progress might be required to keep Irving and Doncic together beyond 2025-26, or to keep Doncic in Dallas as long as retired star Dirk Nowitzki stayed — a record 21 seasons with the same franchise.

“When you have one of the best players in the world,” coach Jason Kidd said, “you should be always fighting for a championship.”

READ: NBA Finals: Kyrie Irving says Mavericks change ‘starts with me’

While Irving and Doncic had a full season, the Mavericks like to talk about having just five months together. That’s when trade-deadline additions Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington arrived and helped give Dallas a defensive mindset that became crucial to the deep playoff run.

Last fall, the talk was the full reset for Doncic and Irving. In 3 1/2 months, the talk will be of Gafford, Washington and budding 7-foot-1 star Dereck Lively II, Dallas’ rookie first-round pick, having their first training camp together.

“We did some great moves,” said Doncic, who won his first scoring title. “I would say we’ve been together for five months. We didn’t win the finals, but we did have a hell of a season.”

If the Mavericks don’t add a starter in the offseason, the 32-year-old Irving figures to be the only player older than 26 in the lineup. Lively won’t be 21 until February.

Maxi Kleber, a 32-year-old with seven seasons of NBA experience, is the other 30-something who might be in the rotation. Tim Hardaway Jr. is the same age, but he fell out of the rotation late in the season, leaving his role in doubt with one year remaining on his contract.

“We’re a young team, and so this isn’t a team when you look at do we have to replace some of the older players,” Kidd said. “We have a core, a young core at that, and so this is an exciting time to be a Mavs fan and to also be a coach for the Mavs.”

The “old guy” — Irving — sounds as if he doesn’t want to be replaced in Dallas anytime soon.



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“When you really love something, you really want to win and it doesn’t happen, how do you respond from that?” Irving asked. “I think I could tell you I’m pretty confident that we’ll be back in the gym pretty soon and getting ready for next year.”

Doncic, Irving can’t deliver for Mavericks in NBA Finals clincher

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Dallas Mavericks’ Kyrie Irving (11), P.J. Washington (25), Maxi Kleber (42) and Luka Doncic (77) head to the bench during a timeout in the second half of Game 5 of the NBA basketball finals against the Boston Celtics, Monday, June 17, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

BOSTON — Short jumpers rolled off the rim and 3-pointers went in and out. Even free throws were a challenge for Luka Doncic in the clinching game of the NBA Finals.

Dallas needed Doncic and Kyrie Irving to be at their best in Game 5 against the Celtics on Monday night. Instead, the Mavericks’ best players got off to a terrible start, and by the time their shots started falling the Celtics were coasting to a 106-88 victory and an unprecedented 18th NBA title.

“It just wasn’t our night offensively,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said after his fifth-seeded team fell short of its second NBA title. “We’re a young team. We have a young core, and so this is an exciting time to be a Mavs fan and to also be a coach for the Mavs.”

Doncic missed his first six 3-point attempts and finished 12 of 25 from the floor. He scored 28 points — 10 of them in the fourth quarter, when Dallas never got closer than 18 points. He had 12 rebounds but also turned the ball over seven times. He was 2 for 5 from the free throw line, a problem that has bothered him throughout the series.

“He’s one of the best players in the world,” Kidd said. “For him at the age of 25 to get to the finals, to be playing his basketball at the level that he’s playing — now it’s just being consistent.”

READ: Celtics rout Mavericks to win record 18th NBA championship

The Slovenian star said injuries — a bruised chest, and problems in his right knee and left ankle — weren’t the problem.

“It doesn’t matter if I was hurt, how much was I hurt. I was out there,” he said. “I tried to play, but I didn’t do enough.”

Irving was 3 for 9 from 3-point range and 5 of 16 overall while fending off boos and crude chants from his former fans every time he touched the ball. He had nine assists but 15 points — six of them in the fourth quarter, when the game was already out of reach.

READ: Postseason like almost none other for Doncic, even without NBA title

“The crowds can chant whatever they want to chant. When we’re away, they’re obviously going to go against us,” Dallas guard Josh Green said. “He does a great job of not letting it affect him and I think that goes back to his leadership on and off the court.

“So we have nothing but respect for Kyrie. … We all got his back, for sure.”

Irving and Doncic shared a hug at the end of the game.



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“We said, ‘We’ll fight together next season,’ and we (are) just going to believe,” Doncic said. “I’m proud of every guy that stepped on the floor, all the coaches, all the people behind. Obviously, we didn’t win finals, but we did have a hell of a season and I’m proud of every one of them.”

In hostile Boston, Mavs’ Irving aims to keep focus on NBA Finals

On: By: admin


Kyrie Irving of the Dallas Mavericks looks to pass the ball during the third quarter against the Boston Celtics in Game Two of the 2024 NBA Finals at TD Garden on June 09, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts.  (Getty Images via AFP)

NEW YORK – Resigned to the villain’s role in Boston, Dallas star Kyrie Irving is less concerned with silencing hostile Celtics fans than with quieting self doubt and leading the Mavs in a must-win NBA Finals game five.
“Let’s just call it what it is,” Irving said Sunday as the Mavs prepared to try once again to fend off elimination in the championship series, in which they trail the Celtics 3-1.
“When the fans are cheering ‘Kyrie sucks’ they feel like they have a psychological edge, and that’s fair,’” said Irving, who was hounded by Celtics fans still rankled by his departure in 2019 after two seasons with the team.
Amid the jeers he delivered two sub-par performances in games one and two, the Mavs eventually falling 0-3 down before a blowout victory in game four to extend the series.
“Of course, if I’m not making shots or turning the ball over, that makes it even more of a pressing issue that they can stay on me for,” Irving said.
“I think in order to silence even the self-doubt, let alone the crowd doubt, but the self-doubt when you make or miss shots, that’s just as important as making sure I’m leading the team the right way and being human through this experience, too, and telling them how I feel.”
Sunday’s victory ended Irving’s own 13-game losing streak against the Celtics.
He’s cognizant of his complicated personal history with the team, which he said stretches back further than his petulant demonstrations when his Brooklyn Nets were swept by the  Celtics in the first round in 2022.
He said Sunday it started when he arrived in Boston in 2017, when he failed to engage with the history of the storied franchise or, as he put it “the cult that they have here.
“That’s what they expect you to do as a player,” Irving said. “They expect you to seamlessly buy into the Celtics’ pride, buy into everything Celtics. And if you don’t, then you’ll be outed.
“I’m one of the people that’s on the outs,” he added with a laugh. “I did it to myself.”
Now Irving is more concerned with the task facing the Mavericks as they try to become the first NBA team to erase an 0-3 deficit to win a playoff series.
“Most importantly, (it’s) not making this about me or getting into the energy with anyone else other than my teammates,” Irving said, adding that the Mavs must think “about the goal that we have in front of us as best we can, and try not to get tired of everyone talking about the history that has not been made.”
Irving, who won a title alongside LeBron James in Cleveland in 2016, said he had encouraged his teammates — many in the Finals for the first time — to embrace and enjoy the moment.
“We got a chance to accomplish one of our goals, which is to make it back to Boston,” Irving said. “We have another goal in front of us, and that’s to make it back to Dallas.”



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Irving ends skid vs Celtics, Mavs try again in Boston

On: By: admin


Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving, center, drives to the basket against the Boston Celtics during the first half in Game 4 of the NBA basketball finals, Friday, June 14, 2024, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

DALLAS — Kyrie Irving’s personal 13-game losing streak against the Celtics is over.

Now it’s back to the parquet floor in Boston to face his former team again, the Dallas Mavericks still alive in the NBA Finals after avoiding a sweep with a 122-84 blowout in Game 4 on Friday night.

The first two road games in this series weren’t Irving’s best, the two in Dallas quite a bit better despite a Game 3 loss that left the Mavs with a deficit no NBA team has overcome to win a playoff series.

Combine that with much more of an impact from the role players around Irving and co-star Luka Doncic, and maybe the constant booing of Irving from the jilted fans in Boston won’t ring quite as loudly in Game 5 on Monday night.

Plenty of green-clad Celtics fans were planning a celebration in Texas, but the loud cheers early when the game was close didn’t last long.

READ: NBA Finals: Kyrie Irving says Mavericks change ‘starts with me’

“You saw all those Celtics fans in there tonight. They travel in packs,” said Irving, who spent two seasons in Boston. “When we go to Boston, there’s going to be a bunch of them yelling a whole bunch of crazy stuff still, but I think we’ve been able to grow and face kind of this adversity head on.

“We’re figuring out each other in a crazy way during the highest stage of basketball,” Irving said. “So it’s a beautiful thing, but it also can be chaotic if you don’t know how to stay poised through it.”

If the Mavericks are to become just the 12th of 157 teams to force a Game 6 after falling behind 3-0 — and get the title series back to Dallas — the supporting cast for Irving and Doncic will have to keep it up.

Dereck Lively II connected on a 3-pointer for the first time in his career — exactly seven months after the the second of the two regular-season attempts from beyond the arc by the 7-foot-1 rookie center.

At one point in the second half, Lively had 12 rebounds, his final total, to 16 for Boston. No wonder Dallas outscored the Celtics 60-26 in the paint, where Lively scored the other eight of his 11 points.

READ: Kyrie Irving channeling 2016 as Mavericks plot NBA Finals rally

Dante Exum hit two 3s and had another taken away when replay revealed he had stepped out of bounds. The buckets from deep were coming from so many Dallas players — 14 of 23, although those numbers were skewed a bit by the blowout — it didn’t matter that Doncic and Irving combined to go 1 of 14.

“It’s five people on the floor,” Doncic said. “So that’s huge for us. Everybody played with a lot of energy. That’s how we got to do it. We got to think the same way in Game 5 in Boston.”

Doncic scored 25 of his 29 points in the first half, while Irving had 10 of his 21 in the third quarter to help push a 26-point halftime lead to 38 before all starters were out of the game for good late in the third.

Lively’s games in the finals have somewhat mirrored those of Irving, his fellow Duke alum. The 20-year-old was mostly quiet in Boston. The two games in Dallas put him in the company of Magic Johnson as the only rookies with consecutive double-doubles in the NBA Finals.

He replaced starter Daniel Gafford earlier than in any of the previous finals games, and coach Jason Kidd said Lively just happened to be in the right spot — the right corner — when he hit the 3 to put Dallas ahead for good about three minutes later.

It’s unlikely Lively will start at this point — something he did early in his rookie season — but the crowd probably will notice when he heads to the scorer’s table for the first time back in Boston.

“If they leave me open in the corner, I’m going to get them up, for sure,” Lively said. “It’s just having that trust. Luka is going to give me the ball. As soon as I shot it, he kind of jumped for joy when it went in.”



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Irving is still trying to find some joy in Boston, and he gets another chance this season.