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Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving has faced the Boston Celtics in the playoffs before since he unceremoniously left the team in free agency five years ago. He beat them in five games as a member of the Brooklyn Nets in 2021 and was then swept by the Celtics—once again with the Nets—the following year. Now, Irving will face Boston in a rubber match. But this time, he is a member of the Mavericks, and this time, it will be in the NBA Finals.
The superstar is surely prepared to be viciously booed once he takes the floor at TD Garden this Thursday, such as been the case every time he was returned to Beantown since his departure. Irving reflected on his time with the Celtics this week and has taken some responsibility for the team's implosion during his brief two-year stint there.
“I don’t mind, after a few years, taking the brunt of the blame (for my time in Boston not working out),” Irving said, via Tim Cato of The Athletic. “(I’m) one of the best players in the world so I know what comes with that fair criticism. You know, it’s just that a little bit more grace could have been extended my way, especially with what I was dealing with during that time as a human being.”
Irving, who has lost his last 10 meetings against the Celtics, now sees it as a time of growth.
“I know sometimes in sports, it’s literally about the end goal and result in what you accomplish, and that’s one thing. But we’re still human,” added Irving. “At the end of the day, I wasn’t my best self during that time. When I look back on it, I just see it as a time where I learned how to let go of things and learned how to talk through my emotions.”
Kyrie Irving is with the Mavericks now, but the Irving-era Celtics could have been great
Things actually got off to a great start in Irving's debut campaign in Boston during the 2017-18 campaign.
He had just come over in a blockbuster trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and in that first season with the C's, Irving averaged 24.4 points, 5.1 assists, 3.8 rebounds and 1.1 steals over 32.2 minutes per game on 49.1/40.8/88.9 shooting splits. However, he played in just 60 games due to a knee procedure and ended up missing the playoffs because of it.
The Celtics won 55 games that season and made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost to the Cavaliers in seven games.
It should also be noted that Gordon Hayward—Boston's prized free-agent acquisition from that preceding summer—suffered a gruesome broken leg injury on opening night, knocking him out for the entire year.
Had the C's been healthy with Irving and Hayward in tact that season, they almost surely would have gone to the NBA Finals and battled the Golden State Warriors.
With Irving and Hayward returning the following year, there were massive expectations for the Celtics. The roster was absolutely loaded top to bottom, and Boston looked like a buzzsaw. Instead, the C's struggled out of the gate and ended up winning just 49 games with Irving's impending free agency hanging over their heads all season long. The Celtics were then hammered by the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the playoffs, and about a month-and-a-half later, Irving departed Boston for Brooklyn.
That came after Irving began the 2018-19 campaign by telling C's fans that he planned on staying, only to change course midway through the season.
There was a lot of blame to go around for everything that went wrong during Irving's short tenure in Boston, but in an alternate universe where Hayward and Irving don't get injured that first season, things may have ended very differently for Kyrie in New England.
Now, Irving and the Mavericks will face the Celtics in the finals. Talk about things coming full circle.
