Kyrie Irving Was Hurt in 'Insurmountable Ways' After Dallas Mavs Missed the Playoffs Last Season

Mavs superstar Kyrie Irving shared his thoughts on clinching a playoff spot and leading a 50-win season.

MIAMI — After defeating the Miami Heat on Wednesday, the Dallas Mavericks clinched a 50-win season and the Southwest Division title. The Mavs will be hanging a divisional banner for the first time since 2021 and for just the fifth time in franchise history.

"It feels great," Mavs superstar Kyrie Irving said. "We earned it."

Apr 10, 2024; Miami, Florida, USA; Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving (11) reacts against the Miami

Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports

The Mavs are set to face the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the playoffs. Irving emphasized the value of celebrating small wins, such as hitting the benchmark and achieving 50 victories in a season. The focus has already shifted to strategizing against the Clippers.

"We do have to celebrate the small wins, and tonight was a step in that direction of celebrating a small win just to get to 50 wins," Irving said. "Some guys in that locker room have never experienced 50 wins. They have never experienced being in fifth place or fourth place or playing against a veteran ball club, potentially in the Clippers."

Given the significant number of injuries the Mavs dealt with early in the season, they went from 26-23 through 49 games to 50-30 through 80 games, using a 24-7 record over the last 31 games. After getting healthy and trading for P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, Dallas has reached new heights defensively after struggling as an undersized group.

"We did it under some crazy circumstances within our season—injuries, trades, uncertainty about how we were going to figure out the defensive end," Irving said. "There were a lot of expectations on our team to begin the season, personally or individually, and then externally from the basketball cultural world, knowing how special Luke and I are."

"We knew that we weren't going anywhere without some great guys alongside us, playing selflessly, and then us playing selflessly, putting our best foot forward towards being better leaders every day, and continuing to get better," Irving explained. "I think that mentality led us to 50 wins. So it's a total organization win, top to bottom."

In contrast to this season, Doncic and Irving struggled to stay healthy after last year's NBA All-Star break, including the beginning of Doncic's persisting left quad injury, while Irving dealt with plantar fasciitis. A lack of defensive execution and a flawed roster often prevented Dallas from putting teams away or achieving clutch wins. With the duo in the early stages of the chemistry-building process, there frequently wasn't enough offensive execution to overcompensate. Being outside looking in regarding the play-in picture, Dallas decided to tank the season's final two games, resulting in a 38-44 finish and a $750,000 fine from the NBA.

Despite the result, Irving re-signed on a three-year, $120 million contract in free agency to help guide Dallas to a better finish in 2023-24. The Mavs achieved a drastically different post-All-Star break run than last season when the team first paired Doncic and Irving. After failing to qualify for the play-in tournament last season, Irving described how it hurt him in "insurmountable ways" to come up short as a team. Everyone involved stayed patient with the long-term chemistry-building process to achieve a more significant result.

"It means a great deal because that was the first time I had dealt with failure at that type of level at the age of 30 and in the prime of my career," Irving said. "Not necessarily being as healthy as I would have liked, but I felt like we had a good enough team to at least get into the postseason, and when we didn't, it hurt me in insurmountable ways, and I couldn't get any redemption until, I turned the page and I was ready for the next chapter, the next phase.

"It's about moving on, and it was tough, especially as a competitor," Irving explained. "You fail in front of the public eye, and you have all these external voices coming at you and telling you who you are and what you're not going to do and what you're capable of, and part of the human experience is not negotiating with yourself about what you want to achieve, it's just going after it."

The Mavs are embracing the chance to face the Clippers, but Irving understands the team has to work to make their late regular season success translate to postseason basketball, which is a more significant challenge. If they can manage to do so, it could result in Dallas getting out of the first round for the second time in the Doncic era.

"We're looking forward to that challenge [of facing the Clippers] while also showing our humility towards the game of basketball, and make sure we continue to put the work in that's necessary for us to separate ourselves in that postseason," Irving said. "Because that's what it's about now. We've done it in the regular season, that's good and dandy, but now this is where the grown-ups start to use their IQ, start to use their emotional intelligence, the physical intangibles, and make the best of it."

The Mavs have two final regular season games remaining with the final matchup being against the Oklahoma City Thunder on April 14. The playoffs begin on April 20 with the possibility of Dallas playing on the second day, meaning there will be practice time to prepare for the Clippers.