Mavs' Kyrie Irving Details Foot Injury After Making Return vs. Jazz: 'I Was Scared, Man'
SALT LAKE CITY — After falling to the floor after a finish attempt against the Portland Trail Blazers on Dec. 8, Dallas Mavericks superstar Kyrie Irving was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Dwight Powell tried to grab an offensive rebound, then landed on Irving's leg in what appeared to be a serious injury. He was diagnosed with a right heel contusion, causing him to miss the next 12 games.
Irving returned to the Mavs' lineup on Jan. 1, finishing with 14 points, nine rebounds, and four assists in a 127-90 loss against the Utah Jazz, ending the team's three-game road trip. He was excited to be back in the lineup, but didn't want to force the issue as he worked back into "the flow of things."
“I was excited to get back out there," Irving said. "It’s been a long time coming for the last few weeks, just trying to ease my way back into the flow of things, the rhythm of our team.We’ve been playing well. I feel like we dropped some games we could have won, but we’re in a good spot right now, and I didn’t want to come in and step on anyone’s toes my first game back,"
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Irving admitted the injury had him "scared" but didn't want people to blame Powell for the sequence. With his daughter in attendance, Irving was concerned about her above all else, but with the injury "throbbing," he was concerned about the potential significance of what occurred.
“Oh, yeah, I was scared, man. I was very scared," Irving said. "My daughter was at the game. I was trying to make sure she was good first, so I went into daddy mode right after. But once I got home, man it was a struggle, just even going to sleep. You could feel the throbbing. I wasn’t sure of the significance of the injury and how long I was going to be out."
After settling the situation, Irving quickly focused on the rehab process, with a strong desire to return to competition to help his team succeed. However, there was a need for both physical healing regarding the injury, along with the mental element of overcoming a "freak accident," as he described it.
“Mentally I started planning out my rehab. The way to attack it is so unique. You just really have to give it rest – and there’s no real rest when you’re at this point of the season," Irving said. "The competitive spirit inside of me wants to get back on the court, but also the human side of me has to give my body time to heal. My mind time to heal. Because it was a freak accident. It was. Any person that tells you when they go through a freak accident that it doesn’t bother them mentally? They’re lying. Everybody saw it. It was one of those plays that could have gone either way. I could have fractured my ankle. I could have broken my ankle.
“So I’m just grateful. And it wasn’t Dwight’s fault, at all, for how the play happened," Irving continued. "So I’m glad we could move past that as a team, and now I’m back in the lineup, and we can look forward to the future.”
After playing in his first game since returning from injury, Irving was able to gauge how his heel reacted physically. He wasn't able to continue to work on his game as often given the nature of his heel injury, so the return to competition process required him to build up a rhythm once again in that respect, as well as the first game back did.
"I just wanted to get a good feel going up and down, see how my heel feels," Irving said. "Just work through the mental side of things of being away from the game. And then also just balancing not being able to work on my game as much as I would like because of my heel."
There was no structural damage to Irving's foot due to the incident, but Irving emphasized the challenges that resulted from it, including not being able to put both of his shoes on for a good 10 or 12 days or even wearing double socks.
"Not being able to put both my shoes on for like 10 days, 12 days and not being able to put double socks on, it’s an adjustment once you have that type of injury," Irving said. "It’s my first time in my career I’ve had this type of injury. It was unique. I wasn’t sure how long I was gonna be out. There was no structural damage done to it, but it was achy. ... You get real, I don’t want to say humbled, but you realize that the injury is a lot more significant when you can’t get your other shoe on. So I’m appreciative of the hard work that our medical staff put in with me and my teammates trusting that I can be on the sideline and they can carry us.”
With the Jazz not allowing Doncic and Irving to dominate the game by switching to a zone defense, Irving credited the Jazz for making adjustments from their previous matchup. Both superstars picked apart Utah in the previous meeting between the teams, with Doncic recording a 40-point triple-double late in the third quarter, while Irving scored 33 points and dished out eight assists.
“Disappointed because you know, I wanted to come back and get a win with my guys," Irving said. "But it was just one of those nights for us where we didn’t start off the game very physical. And you can tell that this game had a little bit more energy for them. They definitely remember the last time we played, they made adjustments.
“You know, and you can tell that they were playing with a different type of focus and mentality out there tonight," Irving explained. "And they were forcing us to be stagnant offensively, which led to us not getting as many stops as we would have liked.”
The most challenging part of returning to action was the "mental battle" for Irving, acknowledging the difference between the physicality of a live NBA game against a team motivated to avenge a 50-point loss compared to what's encountered when playing pickup during the preparation to return.
“Again, it’s a mental battle at this point, having some time off," Irving said. "The first time I got my first foul that I got, [Simone] Fontecchio came directly at my chest. And it just reminds you that this is a physical, combative game.
“It’s one thing playing pickup with the guys and kind of messing around and it’s a whole other thing when the game’s on the line and somebody’s coming at your chest," Irving explained. " So I missed that, is what I’m saying. It snapped me right back into the physicality game, which I needed.
Irving and the Mavs will now have a seven-game homestand at their disposal, enabling the team as he continues to work his way back into a rhythm. He anticipates this helping him and the group collectively, with the first matchup being a two-game mini-series against the Portland Trail Blazers.
“It’s much-needed. We’ve had a unique goal to our season and to be 19-15 at this point, I’m happy about where we are; not satisfied," Irving said. "And we’ll see what the next few days and weeks bring as we get to play in front of our fans, and we get to dial in and go to sleep in our own beds. And you know, it makes a big difference when you’re an NBA player when you could be home and you could lock into the goal at hand, which is to win every single game.”
The Mavs will seek to build some momentum during that homestand after going 1-2 on a road trip and having a losing record (6-7) after playing out the game when Irving suffered his injury. Dallas has already landed in the play-in seeding, ranking seventh in the Western Conference with a 19-15 record.
