If any player knows how badly the Boston Celtics want to close out the Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA finals on Monday night, it’s Kyrie Irving.
The Dallas point guard spent two seasons with Boston, but he has been a villain in the eyes of Celtics fans since leaving to sign with the Brooklyn Nets in the summer of 2019. Chants attacking Irving frequently echoed throughout TD Garden in Games 1 and 2 of these finals – a pair of Mavericks losses in which Irving struggled badly – before Boston hit the road and came out of Dallas with a 3-1 lead in the series.
And with the Celtics knocking on the door of the 18th title in franchise history, Irving has seemingly found peace with his place in Boston history as he prepares to return to a hostile environment.
“Now being older with hindsight looking back, I definitely would have taken time to know the people in the community and talked to some of the champions that have come before me,” Irving told reporters on Sunday. “They have championship pedigree here … 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. I’m perfectly fine with that, you know what I mean. I did it to myself.”
Irving, who won a championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, also admitted he needs to overcome flaws in his own game in Boston.
“I mean, let’s just call it what it is,” Irving said. “When the fans are cheering, ‘Kyrie sucks,’ they feel like they have a psychological edge, and that’s fair. 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.
“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.”
Boston had flaws of their own on Friday, failing to put the Mavericks away while ending up on the wrong end of a 122-84 blowout in Game 4.
Jayson Tatum finished with a team-high 15 points for the Celtics, and he’s hoping that Boston rediscover the brand of basketball that has led them to 79 wins in 100 games between the regular season and playoffs here in 2023-24.
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“I think we maybe put too much pressure on ourselves at that moment to be perfect or think it was going to go how we wanted it to go,” Tatum said of why the Celtics came up short on Friday. “[Coach Joe Mazzulla] did a great job of reminding us that it’s OK to smile during wars. It’s OK to have fun during high-pressure moments. That’s what makes our team unique and special.”
Luka Dončić went for 29 points and Irving supplied 21 on Friday to keep Dallas’ season alive. The Mavericks are trying to become the first team in NBA history to overcome a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series. Teams are 0-156 when losing the first three games of a series.
“I think the most important thing is to show that we believe,” Dončić said. “I think we showed in Game 4. If not, if we wouldn’t believe, we probably wouldn’t have won that game. So I think obviously the talk is easy to talk about it, but then showing it is another thing.”
