{"id":78594,"date":"2024-05-23T12:48:45","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T16:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=78594"},"modified":"2024-05-23T12:48:45","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T16:48:45","slug":"mavs-veteran-kyrie-irving-kindred-spirit-young-all-star-anthony-edwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/23\/mavs-veteran-kyrie-irving-kindred-spirit-young-all-star-anthony-edwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavs Veteran Finds Kindred Spirit in Young All-Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the Dallas Mavericks outlasted the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Mavs star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a> sat down with the co-hosts of TNT\u2019s Inside the NBA to discuss the victory.<\/p>\n<p>Asked by Hall of Fame forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/barklch01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Charles Barkley<\/a> how he felt about <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ESPNNBA\/status\/1792539525836587228\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">being challenged by<\/a> Timberwolves face of the franchise <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/e\/edwaran01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Edwards<\/a> ahead of the series, a bemused Irving reveals that he \u201cused it as a motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Kyrie Irving Finds Kindred Spirit in Anthony Edwards<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was sitting at home and I saw it, I was like, \u2018It\u2019s just a nod of respect\u2019\u2026 I knew what type of game it was about to be for Game 1 and the rest of the series.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8220;I used it as motivation&#8230; That&#8217;s a no fear mentality and that&#8217;s why we love Ant.&#8221; \ud83d\udcaf<\/p>\n<p>Kyrie on Ant calling him out ahead of Game 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Mp4zw9Qccl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Mp4zw9Qccl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBAonTNT\/status\/1793482657965166823?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 23, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a peer, I love that,\u201d Irving says, answering a similar question at the podium. \u201cI love it man. It\u2019s nothing better.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kyrie Irving on the Anthony Edwards matchup: \u201cAs a peer, I love that. It\u2019s nothing better. When Ant was a little younger, I\u2019m sure he was watching me. When he was in high school, I was watching him. It\u2019s more of those exciting matchups that I look forward to. Right after the game\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/D8cIV8oqKT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/D8cIV8oqKT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikeAScotto\/status\/1793494747824140564?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 23, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight after (<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/20\/timberwolves-nuggets-game-7-showdown-makes-nba-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals<\/a>), it was funny because he said it right then and there,\u201d he says laughing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the whole world was looking like, \u2018Okay, you better know what you\u2019re talking about, Ant.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When Ant was a little bit younger, I\u2019m sure he was watching me. When he was in high school, I was watching him. So, for me, it\u2019s one of those exciting matchups that I look forward to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Edwards did actually check up Irving, although the Wolves certainly mixed the coverages. However, despite the young star\u2019s confidence, Irving was all but unstoppable. Knifing his way through the defense time and time again, his silky scoring ability led to 24 first half points.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kyrie Irving (30 points) Highlights vs. Minnesota Timberwolves | 5\/22\/24\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NrC92qBFvoU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Unable to replicate that performance after they came out of the locker rooms, Irving went 1-9 from the field. He lost his touch completely in the fourth quarter, missing all six of his shot attempts. As Irving struggled to find the bottom of the net, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/alexani01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a> started the quarter as his primary defender.<\/p>\n<p>Edwards closed the game guarding him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI respect that,\u201d Irving says of Edwards\u2019s confidence in his defensive ability, \u201cand that \u2018no fear\u2019 mentality that he has is why I love him as a competitor and why I love him as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we\u2019re on the court, I know he\u2019s going to give it his all. I\u2019m going to give it my all,\u201d he continues. \u201cAt the end of the game, it\u2019s all love. When we\u2019re in between those lines, he knows what it is and I know what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the Dallas Mavericks outlasted the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Mavs star Kyrie Irving sat down with the co-hosts of TNT\u2019s Inside the NBA to discuss the victory. Asked by Hall of Fame forward Charles Barkley how he felt about being challenged by Timberwolves face of the franchise Anthony [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":78604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,21,62,3],"tags":[2109,406,596],"class_list":["post-78594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-timberwolves","category-nba","category-news","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-nba-playoffs"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}