{"id":94548,"date":"2024-09-06T03:23:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T07:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=94548"},"modified":"2024-09-06T03:23:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T07:23:22","slug":"mavs-chief-kyrie-irving-speaks-mind-finals-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/09\/06\/mavs-chief-kyrie-irving-speaks-mind-finals-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavs Chief Speaks Mind About Finals Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was a unique postseason for Dallas Mavericks guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a>, with the veteran playing a different role in every round.<\/p>\n<p>He got off on the right foot against the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round, a game-changer at both ends of the floor. When they took down the Oklahoma City Thunder in the semifinal round, it required him to be more of a facilitator. Then, dispatching the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, his focus was on scoring.<\/p>\n<p>At this point, Irving was averaging 22.8 points, 5.2 assists, and 1.2 steals per game on .485-.421-.828 shooting splits. His play wasn\u2019t the only headline-grabber either, as he was getting <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/04\/lebron-james-mixed-feelings-former-running-mate-kyrie-irving\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">high marks for his maturity<\/a>. It wouldn\u2019t be unfair to say he was on top of the world, as he hadn\u2019t gotten that much positive publicity in years.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when everything went downhill. In the 2024 NBA Finals, Irving averaged 19.8 points and 5.0 assists per game, but only made 41.4 percent of his field goal attempts and 27.6 percent of his 3s. He struggled against the Boston Celtics\u2019 ball pressure. He couldn\u2019t consistently capitalize on his open shots.<\/p>\n<h2>Mavs\u2019 Kyrie Irving Speaks Mind About Finals Loss<\/h2>\n<p>While streaming on Twitch, the 2016 NBA champion spoke about the his last Finals appearance. As expected, he was transparent and accountable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast year was definitely a disappointing year from the standpoint of not winning the Finals as a team and coming up short,\u201d Irving admits. \u201cWe got there for a reason, you know? Blood is definitely in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Dallas Mavericks star guard Kyrie Irving on losing the NBA Finals and his outlook for this season:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast year was definitely a disappointing year from the standpoint of not winning the Finals\u2026We got there for a reason. Blood is definitely in the water. I\u2019m always going to take\u2026 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/glrp3PJzx2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/glrp3PJzx2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Noah Weber (@noahweber00) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/noahweber00\/status\/1831824526071509394?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m always going to take my accountability. It starts with me\u2026 Did not play my best at all down the stretch in the season and it\u2019s been eating me alive in a healthy way, just staying motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re gonna be back,\u201d he assures.<\/p>\n<h3>Will The Big 3 Model Work?<\/h3>\n<p>Irving\u2019s Mavs will have a good chance at returning to the NBA Finals, health permitting.<\/p>\n<p>Any team with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/doncilu01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luka Doncic<\/a>, a prodigious scorer and playmaker, is always dangerous. With a backcourt mate many consider to be the most skilled offensive player of all-time, Dallas is that much more dangerous. Now they\u2019ve added a four-time NBA champion in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/thompkl01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Klay Thompson<\/a>, who\u2019ll replace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jonesde02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Derrick Jones Jr.<\/a> in the starting lineup.<\/p>\n<p>Swapping Jones for Thompson lowers their ceiling defensively, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/30\/nba-champion-klay-thompson-proclaims-himself-mavs-missing-title-piece\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">it raises it offensively<\/a>. To that point, Jones is a career 31.6 percent 3-point shooter, whereas Thompson has made 41.3 percent of his 3s. With more floor and less vertical spacing, the geometry also changes. Now, the Mavs can expect more open space inside the arc, which benefits Irving and Doncic.<\/p>\n<p>The Big 3 model doesn\u2019t work out for every team. They\u2019ll have stiff competition, with several teams appearing to be legitimate title-contenders. Nonetheless, in the parity era, a team with as much talent as the Dallas\u2019 has a shot at a ring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a unique postseason for Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving, with the veteran playing a different role in every round. He got off on the right foot against the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round, a game-changer at both ends of the floor. When they took down the Oklahoma City Thunder in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":94556,"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":[30,1608,62,3],"tags":[70,406,596],"class_list":["post-94548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-klay-thompson","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-nba-playoffs"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94548","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=94548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}