Boston Celtics Have Loomed Over Kyrie Irving Since his Nets Tenure

Irving is now 0-8 versus the Celtics since the 2022 playoffs.

Plenty of NBA storylines have come and gone since Kyrie Irving last beat the Boston Celtics. Even solely within the Nets' organization.

Former Net Bruce Brown has won an NBA championship, and Brooklyn's former big three leader Kevin Durant added Devin Booker as his costar in moving to Phoenix, and just wrapped up their second postseason run together in May.

Although there are some different faces on the 2024 Celtics team on the verge of winning it all compared to the 2022 Celtics squad, the agenda has always been the same in preparations for Irving. TD Garden has been the valuable sixth man for the Celtics and it is affecting the established premier guard.

In Games 1 and 2, Irving looked a shell of himself, scoring just 28 points combined in the two contests on shaky splits across the board.

The energy that Irving usually carries that welcomes all sorts of different defensive coverages has not been effective versus the Celtics since losing to them in the 2022 playoffs. The only glimpse we have seen of Irving doing so was Game 3, but it wasn't for the entire 48 minutes. He scored 35 points, but used 28 shots to do so, missing his final one in the clutch.

Regardless of Irving's bounce-back, Dallas has only had small stretches of success in the series, losing all three games. Now, Irving finds himself down 0-3, and has a monumental climb ahead of him if the Mavericks are to stay in the series.

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