A 0-3 NBA finals comeback may be Kyrie Irving’s biggest conspiracy theory

LAte into Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, the Dallas Mavericks were on the brink. They largely erased a 21-point deficit to move within three points of the Boston Celtics. Then Luka Dončić, the Mavs’ superstar scorer, was fouled – the first time he’s ever done that in a playoff game.

That left Kyrie Irving, the Deadpool to Dončić’s Wolverine, to carry the day. And when he went on to score Dallas’ next four points, including an 18-foot jump that cut the Boston lead to one, it looked like the Mavericks might actually make it a competitive series. But it wasn’t to be. Boston is just too good and too strong. The result, a 106-99 Celtics victory on Dallas’ home floor, puts the Mavericks in an 0-3 series hole, a margin from which no NBA team has ever recovered. And it came just as Irving, who scored a game-high 35 points, had two quiet games to start the series.

This NBA season has been notable for Irving’s deafening silence despite the endless opportunities to express his opinions. Forget the wars going on around the world and the protests on American campuses. Irving kept things quiet when LeBron James, Irving’s championship-winning running mate, came into play apparently couldn’t wait to get awaywent on his podcast days before the finals to say how much he missed playing with “the most gifted player the NBA has ever seen.”

And there are signs that Irving is a much better teammate these days. After Wednesday’s loss to the Celtics, his first thoughts were of Dončić.

“You just have to let it breathe a little bit,” Irving said of what he wanted to tell his co-star. “Let the human emotions come out. Just give him a hug. That’s it, man. It’s easy to just point at him and say, “You could be better.” That’s easy to say. I think he knows that. But yeah, it reiterates that I’m behind him, we’re all behind him.”

And all season, Irving has looked to all the world as the Zen disciple of Phil Jackson’s dreams, one with the universe, in harmony with his family and firmly in his creative zone. He telegraphs as often by showing up to work with a charm necklace and a feather earring, just as he did when he was young. burning sage at TD Garden Court in Boston. Only now he’s taking the high road in interviews before lacing up his moccasin sneakers. The change of scenery and a $126 million extension this offseason in Dallas have apparently done wonders for Irving’s perspective and inner peace. His collaboration with Dončić, a heady experiment that many expected to fail spectacularly, was instead a historic success.

In the Mavericks’ iso-ball scheme, the two ball-dominant scorers established themselves as perhaps the league’s best duo and crunch-time performers, amassing an impressive 23-9 record in games where the score was within five points came in the last five minutes. . Now here they are in Dončić’s first NBA Finals series, less than 18 months after Dallas traded for Irving. It’s enough to make you believe Irving has always played the hero. But he still tries for the role.

It was in January 2021 that ESPN’s Stephen A Smith Irving called to announce his retirement because he “clearly didn’t want to play basketball enough.” This was back when Irving was still something of an NBA threat, the infamous flat-earther one was fined by the NBA and sidelined by his team for ignoring mask mandates. Worse, this came after he essentially created (and then sabotaged) his own superteam in Brooklyn at a time when New York’s high Covid-19 death rate prompted health measures to prevent further spread – not least the requiring the city’s professional athletes and entertainers to have proof of vaccination in order to work. If you can judge a man by the company he keeps, make what you will of the fact that in October 2021, a mob of anti-vaccine protesters showed up at the Nets’ Barclays Center. to “stand with Kyrie”who had refused to take the shot.

In total, Irving missed 53 games over two seasons until New York Mayor Eric Adams lifted the workplace vaccination mandate in March 2022 — but not before the point guard bought seats to a Nets home game, and showed up unmasked to prove his point (unvaccinated people were allowed to attend games in town, but if they were Nets players they were not allowed to participate). All the while, his super team – touted as a championship contender – was defeated in the first round of the playoffs by the Boston Celtics. Ultimately, the medical drama was just a taste of a much bigger spectacle: Irving’s tacit approval of a film that promoted anti-Semitic tropes, a case that brought pro-Irving protesters back to the Barclays Center to add to the Nets’ headaches.

Only after significant pressure, a suspension from the team, and Nike dropping him from their list of brand ambassadors, did Irving admit his error in judgment and publicly apologize – but by then the damage had already been done. The Nets super team was in shambles, Kevin Durant and James Harden had been traded away and Irving thought he would be next after failing to reach an agreement on a contract extension. The prospect of another NBA team taking on such a controversial player seemed bleak until the Mavericks stepped up. It turned out to be an ideal landing spot.

In Dallas, Irving feels completely at home among the state’s prominent figures medical skeptics; his voice, at least on the regional sports spectrum, is not nearly as big as that of team owners like Mark Cuban of the Mavericks or the all-powerful Jerry Jones of the Cowboys. The Cowboys, Texas Longhorns, Texas A&M Aggies and the recent World Series champions up and down the highway and in Houston – these are the teams that usually suck up the oxygen in the Lone Star State. As long as Irving showed up for work and performed satisfactorily, he could expect the locals to cut him plenty of slack. That he also stuck to sports and resisted the temptation to make his views more widely known outside the arena likely comes as a welcome bonus to Texas sports fans as well.

Irving more than lived up to that mark in his first full season with the Mavericks, joining forces with Dončić as they became the third duo in NBA history to each score at least 25 points, five rebounds and five assists in a season. They work together as two halves of the same whole, with Dončić’s fiery fearlessness and craftsmanship blending perfectly with Irving’s keen knowledge. And for once in Irving’s NBA career, everything is simple. “We like to play basketball,” Dončić said of his running mate after shutting down Minnesota in the Western Conference finals. “We like to play together. That is it.”

However, time is quickly running out this season. Their two-man play, while indeed overwhelming, has thus far proven to be no match for a balanced Boston team that boasts its own dynamic duo in All-Stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Throughout the regular season and playoffs, the offense was Dallas’ best defense. The Mavs started the game well on Wednesday, opening a 22-9 lead behind big threes from Dončić and Irving, stirring the home crowd. But when the moment required Dallas’ duo to actually mark the Celtics, they were either too aggressive (see Dončić picking up his last two fouls in less than 30 seconds) or were caught flat-footed (check out Irving knocking the ball out of the loses an eye and Brown grows up this corner three).

With another loss or worse, a sweep, Irving risks making himself a target for scrutiny again, at least on the field, especially with Dončić’s contract expiring in 2026 while he and Irving can opt out of their deals.

“This is a metaphor, so just be ready,” Irving said after Wednesday’s game, walking up to explain the mentality it takes to get to four wins, something none of the previous 156 teams have experienced who had to contend with a 0-3 deficit. NBA playoff series have done. “Just go home, get the ammo ready, get the bazooka ready, get the 50-cal ready, you know, get everything ready. Because when we get into Game 4, we know we have to shoot our guns. We just have to stay positive.”

A Zen koan that converts gun violence into a positive affirmation? It’s clear that Irving, like the Mavericks, still has a ways to go.