No Mavericks player was booed more vociferously in Game 1 of the NBA Finals than Kyrie Irving.
After his postgame comments, Irving can expect to hear even noisier jeers in Game 2.
The former Celtics guard said after Boston steamrolled Dallas 107-89 on Thursday night that he was expecting a louder crowd in his latest return to TD Garden.
“Being in this environment, I’m used to it at this point,” said Irving, who played for the Celtics from 2017-19 and has been hated by a large portion of their fanbase ever since. “Early in my career, there was a different relationship that I had with Boston and just being able to come here, be settled with a veteran group. Now I’m here as a veteran, over the past few years, just experiencing the playoffs here, even regular season, it’s been the same thing.
“I thought it was going to be a little louder in here, but I’m expecting the same things going into Game 2. Crowd trying to get me out of my element, my teammates out of my element.”
Whether or not the fans — who initiated more than a half-dozen “Kyrie sucks” chants and booed him every time he touched the ball — were to blame, Irving certainly looked flummoxed in the Mavs’ blowout loss. He scored 12 points on 19 shots and was 0-for-5 from 3-point range. Luka Doncic’s co-star also dished out just two assists, turned the ball over three times, did not attempt a free throw and was a team-worst minus-19 in his 37 minutes.
Doncic scored 30 points for Dallas but got little help from his supporting cast. No other Mavs player finished with more than 14 points, and the team had more turnovers (12) than assists (nine).
The loss extended Irving’s years-long losing streak against his former club. He has not beaten Boston since the 2021 playoffs, dropping the last 11 matchups.
“It’s not the first time I’ve lost in Boston,” Irving said. “I don’t want to continue to make it a habit, but they’ve had a few games over me and they have our number. Not our number — I don’t want to say our number — but the past few teams I’ve been on, they have had my number a little bit.
“You have to give credit to a good team. They have been good the past three or four years. We want to show them respect, but at the same time, we want to bring our best game. We have to play four of our greatest games in order to win the series and in order to win the Finals.”
Though the Celtics dominated Thursday night, Irving and the Mavs have been in this position before. Dallas lost by double digits in Game 1 of each of its first two series this postseason before rallying to win both. Boston, meanwhile, has lost two Game 2s at home in these playoffs.
It had been two long years of sitting with championship defeat for Jayson Tatum.
The six-game NBA Finals series the Celtics famously dropped to Golden State on their home floor in 2022. A stage that brought him career heartbreak, yet a place he ached to return to.
That stage finally returned Thursday night, back at TD Garden against Doncic and the Mavericks with the start of this year’s Finals. So how did Tatum feel?
In his words, “like a little kid.”
“It felt great. To be honest, I was nervous. I ain’t going to lie. I was nervous in like an anxious way, like a little kid,” Tatum said after Boston’s Game 1 win. “It’s surreal being in the Finals. When you’re young, I guess, in your career, you think you’re always going to go back. Last year was kind of like a wake-up call when we didn’t make it.
“So getting back to this point and being here is really a big deal. We played well tonight.”
Offensively, Tatum played a subpar game, finishing with 16 points on 6-of-16 shooting with six turnovers. He also added 11 rebounds and five assists, and dug in defensively versus Dallas’ centers. The Celtics tasked Tatum with defending the springy Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II, so they could switch and short-circuit the Mavericks’ preferred pick-and-roll combinations with Doncic.
They did. The Celtics limited Dallas to 24 or fewer points in every quarter and held a 29-point lead in the first half, thanks to Tatum’s dirty work and his teammates picking up the scoring slack.
“Something that we have harped on all season, what makes our team really special is, we don’t have guys that we hide on defense,” Tatum said. “Bigs and guards, we switch, we take on the challenge of individual defense. Understanding that we have help, it’s a team sport, we all got to be on the same page, but we’re not showing or anything like that, because that could kind of compromise your defense.
“And, essentially, if you want to play on our team you have to be able to guard. And everybody knows that.”
Tatum and the Celtics know it will take a lot more dirty work and hard-earned winning to put Dallas away. Boston beat Golden State in Game 1 of the 2022 Finals – on the road no less – but lost four of the next five games to let the series slip. Game 2 against Dallas is set for Sunday at the Garden at 8 p.m.
And if Game 1 is any indication, Tatum might find himself at pregame shoot-around feeling like he’s gone back in time once again.
“Like I said, I was, in a positive way — I was nervous before the game. I was like a kid (on the) first day of school,” he said. “I know how exciting and big of a deal all of this is, so just finding a space to enjoy the moment and have fun playing basketball.”
Want a snapshot of the Kristaps Porzingis effect? With the multitalented 7-foot-2 center back in the lineup for Game 1, the Celtics flat-out dominated the Mavericks at the rim, shooting 100% (15 of 15) in the restricted area to Dallas’ 64% (16 of 25) and blocking nine shots to the Mavs’ one.
Porzingis, who offers both high-end rim protection and the ability to lure opposing bigs away from the basket with his 3-point prowess, totaled 20 points, six rebounds and three blocks in 21 minutes off the bench after missing the previous 10 games with a calf strain.
“He’s a matchup nightmare,” Celtics guard Derrick White said. “Even when you play good defense, he doesn’t really see you. It’s been unreal just watching him all year. Then defensively, he uses his size well, just impacts the games in so many different ways. He changes us and he makes us a better team.”