The Nets’ championship window got slammed shut when their Big 3 broke up like a failed marriage. Now Brooklyn fans have had to watch Kyrie Irving reach the brink of the NBA Finals they had expected him to lead their team to.
Kevin Durant’s Suns and James Harden’s Clippers suffered first-round exits, KD’s in a sweep.
But Irving and Dallas have a 3–1 lead in the Western Conference finals after Tuesday’s 105-100 loss to the Timberwolves. With no team in history ever having blown a 3-0 lead, Irving reaching his fourth career Finals still seems a fait accompli.
For both the ex-Boston teammates Irving will face and the former Nets teammates who’ll be home watching, it will be a bitter reminder of what could’ve been. No, what should’ve been.
And for Irving, it will be a measure of redemption. When the point guard started last season, his value around the league had cratered. Or more accurately, he had cratered it.
Forget his injury history, absences and vaccine refusal that cost him two-thirds of the 2021-22 season, and a max contract.
Last season it was his promotion of not just fake news purveyor Alex Jones but also an anti-Semitic film — and refusal to apologize for such — that got him suspended.
It appeared to be the breaking point between team and star.
Upon Irving’s return, he played exceptionally well. Preternaturally gifted on the ball, he was brilliant in lifting the Nets to a hot streak … then demanded a trade.
A superstar who once would’ve commanded a king’s ransom brought back “only” a first-round pick, two seconds, Spencer Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith, with Dinwiddie already traded and Finney-Smith seemingly likely to follow.
But Irving, playing alongside Luka Doncic, has given Dallas the NBA’s most unique pair of closers. A locked-in Irving entered Tuesday’s Game 4 averaging 27.7 points and 4.7 assists in the conference finals.
He finished with 16 points, four assists and four turnovers in 42 minutes in Tuesday’s loss.
Irving had the Mavs on the brink of the NBA Finals his Nets weren’t able to reach.
“I feel like it’s a great chapter that’s being written right now,” Irving said. “I’m enjoying every step of the way. I’m not taking anything for granted.
“I’m enjoying the Dallas community and the fans here. We talked about this earlier in the season, just how much I felt embraced. But I think it’s gone a little deeper than that. It’s really helped me grow as a human being and find my peace out here.”
There is a not-so-delicious irony in the West Orange-bred Irving — who grew up attending Nets games at the Meadowlands — feeling more at home in Texas.
Irving has credited much of his career rebirth to Mavericks coach Jason Kidd, who’d led those Nets teams that Irving watched in the 2002 and ’03 Finals.
“Even when we had a [coaching] vacancy in Brooklyn I wanted to see if he could come and coach us and be another Brooklyn head coach,” Irving said earlier.
Instead, arguably the greatest guards in Nets history are teaming up to lead Dallas to the Finals instead.
“We don’t see that perception of what’s been written in the past. We’re only in the present,” Kidd said. “What he’s doing is rewriting his journey.”
A mental-health proponent, Irving has talked of spiritual and holistic well-being. Clearly, he finds himself in a better headspace.
“It’s good to breathe fresh air and get outside. Seasonal depression is real when you’re growing up up North,” Irving said. “I spent 12 years in the Eastern Conference in three cold cities that deal with four seasons. You come out here, you’re able to get outside and ground yourself a little more, spend time with your family, watch your kids run outside.”
Kidd praised Irving’s willingness to be a second option to Doncic. In reality, he’s accustomed to the role, having played behind LeBron James, Durant and Harden. He also shared the spotlight with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in Boston.
Now he’ll likely face those two ex-teammates, with a ring at stake.
When Boston swept its way into the Finals, their fans poured out into the streets chanting “F–k Kyrie! F–k Kyrie!”
Celtics fans, salty since Irving’s departure in free agency, have showered him with profanity since, one even throwing a bottle at him in his 2021 TD Garden return.
On Monday ex-Celtics big man Kendrick Perkins implored their fans to behave appropriately and not poke the bear.
“OK, boo him, do whatever you want. But please, I’m warning you guys, do not take it over. Leave him alone,” Perkins said on ESPN. “We know that they’re going to boo him. But the excessive thing — like the things where fans gotta get escorted out the arena — leave him alone. I’m telling y’all, it’s for y’all best interest. Leave that man alone. That man is playing his [butt] off. He’s on a mission.”
It’s a mission Nets fans once hoped would be for them.
