NBA
Kyrie Irving will almost certainly be subjected to some vulgar chants.
Celtics fans lashed out at the Mavericks star, who told them he intended to re-sign with Boston but ended up teaming up with Kevin Durant in Brooklyn.
This is the storyline of all storylines in the upcoming NBA Finals: Irving returns to Boston as the bad guy facing the Celtics in search of a second championship, and standing in his way is his former team.
“Boston is getting in the way of our goals,” he said in an interview with TNT.
Since leaving the team in the summer of 2019, the 32-year-old Irving has likened angry Celtics fans to a betrayed ex-lover who still wants to know why he dumped her. He has burned sage courtside to “cleanse the energy” at TD Garden.
He once stepped on the “Lucky the Leprechaun” logo at center court and gave the middle finger to Celtics fans.
Irving's tenure with the Nets was largely a failure, with just one series win in his four seasons with the team, and he missed nearly the entire 2022 home schedule after refusing to get vaccinated.
The Nets also suspended him after he posted a link to a controversial film on Twitter because he was unwilling to “unequivocally state” that he did not hold anti-Semitic beliefs.
The team traded him to the Mavericks in February 2023, and he has been a powerful one-two punch with Luka Doncic this year. In the playoffs this season, he averaged 22.8 points, 5.2 assists and a 42.1% three-point shooting percentage, putting everything on the line.
Now he returns to Boston as the enemy, and all eyes will be on how he handles the non-stop heckling.
Below, The Post takes a look at some of the other storylines in the series.
The Celtics are the favorites to win, but the Mavericks have the best player on the court.
It's hard to argue that no one is playing at a higher level than Luka Doncic.
The Slovenian superstar followed up a dominant regular season with career-high averages of 33.9 points, 9.8 assists and 37.5 minutes per game while shooting 38.2 percent from three-point range with a 4-0 lead, followed by an outstanding postseason performance with six triple-doubles and 9.1 assists per game, more than any other player in the NBA this season.
He scored 20 points in the first quarter of Game 5 to decide the Western Conference finals, thwarting a Timberwolves rally and leading the Mavericks to the finals in his sixth season in the league.
It's Boston's most talked about calf: that of Kristaps Porzingis.
He strained his right calf in Game 4 of the Celtics' season opener against the Heat and hasn't played since.
His absence has left the Eastern Conference champions a little thin up front, but that may no longer be the case.
Coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters Friday that the 7-foot-2 Latvian, who can shoot the ball well, is “getting better” and is expected to be available for Game 1 next Thursday.
Porzingis has added a new dimension to the Celtics this season, averaging 20.1 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks while shooting a career-best 51.6 percent from the field.
He also has the added motivation of playing against his former team, which traded him to the Wizards in 2022.
Although a hometown team hasn't reached the NBA Finals since the Nets reached them in 2002 and 2003, there are many connections between the two teams.
Former Knicks and Dallas coaches Kristaps Porzingis and Luke Kornet of the Celtics and Tim Hardaway Jr. of the Mavericks are both former coaches. Jason Kidd once coached the Nets and played for both hometown teams.
The Nets helped establish both of those teams.
Remember, the ill-fated trade that sent Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce from the Celtics to the Nets in 2013 gave Boston back-to-back first-round draft picks in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum?
Plus, the Nets sent Kyrie Irving to Dallas last February in exchange for Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith and three future draft picks. Nets fans might be shivering at this series.
With Tatum and Brown at the helm, the Celtics have been on a winning streak for some time now, reaching the Eastern Conference finals six times in the past eight years.
This will be Boston's second NBA Finals appearance in the last three seasons, but the team was largely untested in the playoffs this season, winning 12 of 14 games. One could argue Boston was lucky, facing a Heat side without Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier in the first round, an injury-plagued Cavaliers side that was missing Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert at the end of the series in the second round, and a Pacers' star player in the conference finals, Tyrese Haliburton, did not return after suffering a hamstring injury in Game 2.
Of course, the Celtics have been without Porzingis since Game 4 against the Heat, but that hasn't slowed them down.
Still, this series will determine whether this was a successful year for them. That's how high the expectations were. Tatum and Brown are young superstars with eight combined All-Star appearances. But they haven't always performed when it matters, and last year's seven-game losing streak to the eighth-seeded Heat in the conference finals was a disappointment.
Both teams have been outplayed in the playoffs while still performing well on both ends of the court, and now the lights will really be on brighter.
That hasn't necessarily been a good thing for Tatum and Brown.
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