DALLAS – The NBA Finals didn’t go as planned for Kyrie Irving, Luka Dončić’s running mate who has yet to leave his mark in this series.
He’s seeing a lot of bodies, and they’re all equipped to defend him or at least make things difficult. So far, they’re winning the battle – Irving hasn’t hit a 3-pointer despite looking good and is shooting just 35.1% in the first two games.
What’s more, he hasn’t gotten to the line much and defensively the Celtics are putting him in spots where Irving has to be in the backfield, which means he’s more susceptible to foul trouble.
In short, if he doesn’t turn things around quickly, the Dallas Mavericks will face elimination on Friday night. Irving said he reached out to Dončić to take responsibility for not playing well, telling him he needed to play better.
Both Irving and Boston’s Jayson Tatum haven’t been offensive, but Boston has a much more balanced and experienced squad. Tatum can afford to have poor shooting games, but he is also facilitating the offense and being a ball-moving wingman when the Celtics are getting good shots. He is also defending well and rebounding.
Irving has to score in this case, and the Celtics made it a priority to stop him.
“The first thing is to accept that I didn’t play as well or to my standards as well as I would have liked,” Irving said Tuesday after Mavericks practice. “Being back in Boston, there is a great desire within me to play well. I wanted to be there for my teammates. As a competitor, it’s frustrating.”
Maybe he was trying too hard to block out the chants and boos from the TD Garden crowd every time he touched the ball, as well as wanting to perform at his best.
“I think he missed some easy shots. Obviously I expect him to be even more aggressive and fight to make shots,” said Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla. “The most important thing is just to be detailed in individual defense. It’s not about turning it off. It’s just about making things difficult for him because of his ability to impact plays.”
Having three consecutive bad shooting games or even three bad shooting games seems unlikely, as he has never had consecutive games under 20 points during this regular season. He showed a propensity to bounce back during the playoff run, becoming a distributor during the Oklahoma City series when he didn’t hit well in Game 2 and Game 4.
Let’s not forget that he absolutely torched the Minnesota Timberwolves’ defense, with three 30-point games in that five-game romp.
And it appears the Celtics are well aware they have limited control over Irving, being careful not to step on any land mines.
“I think it’s the team’s defense. We do this as a team. It’s not just one person, it’s everyone,” Jrue Holiday said. “We just tried to defend him, we tried to show him bodies, different people and we just tried to make it difficult.”
Holiday has had a stellar series and is in early Finals MVP conversations – a task he will have to keep up with as Kristaps Porziņģis’ health is a question mark heading into Game 3 as he was listed as questionable on Tuesday afternoon -fair.
For Irving, one less body in the lane and one less set of long arms at the rim could make a big difference. He says the Celtics are “targeting me to make it difficult” and he needs to figure that out.
“I’m just trying to make it difficult for him,” Celtics guard Derrick White said. “He’s obviously a great player and it’s just trying to get him to hit hard shots. We hope he plays better, so it will be a bigger challenge for us.”
He came off the ball, especially playing alongside Dante Exum, but the shooters didn’t get it right to tip the Celtics’ defense. Even if that trend changes in Game 3, the most likely path to changing the complexion of the series will be for Irving to single-handedly break down the Celtics defense.
It’s tempting to look back to 2016, when Irving was in Cleveland with LeBron James and that team lost 2-0 and then 3-1 before turning things around against the 73-win Golden State Warriors.
But this is an older Irving, a really good but maybe not dynastic Celtics team on the other side, and a younger Mavericks team that probably needs more leadership from Irving rather than just the shooting he was called to provide eight years ago.
The common denominator, however, is the resilience needed to stay mentally and not succumb to the worst thoughts or impulses.
“We had time to fail together. We had time to go through our trials together. We lost in 2015,” Irving said of the Cavaliers team. “A lot of guys came back in 2016 and we won. So there was an internal motivation there. We also knew who we were going to play against and how well they played.
“I think if you have a healthy way or perspective of looking at where we are right now, it looks like we are that team that is gaining experience, that is capable of failing at this level. Now we have the opportunity to respond. That’s all you can ask for in a basketball season.”
Dallas could very well be hurting, like the Celtics did two years ago in the Finals against the Warriors. As Irving has stated multiple times, there is no guarantee of returning to this stage.
So he’s looking at the deficit with an attitude of gratitude, one supposes.
“If you asked me in September or October if I would like the chance to go down 0-2 and have a chance to respond in Game 3 or to miss out on the playoffs, I think I would choose the former,” Irving said. “It’s as simple as that in terms of putting everything into perspective. We are the only teams left. This is about chess. That is all.
His next move will be on Wednesday.
