Mavs’ Kyrie Irving Speaks After Win vs. Wizards: Feb. 12, 2024

Mavs’ Kyrie Irving Speaks After Win vs. Wizards: Feb. 12, 2024

What you think about Daniel Gord tonight uh great effort um think he uh did his best of controlling his emotions or um allowing his emotions to show right or um just allowing the um the attitude inside him just to focus on doing whatever it takes to win uh going against your former team

Is always going to bring out those natural emotions so grateful I got to see him in that environment with us tonight um see how he responded and um just of him you know the last two games he’s done incredibly well um and he’s been a big Force down there for

Us okay what what contributed to the big surge in a late in the fourth qu what do you mean oh just with us as a team team I think we just got tired of going back and forward for them a little bit and it’s no disrespect to them but um we we

Felt like some of our defensive principles were were lagging a little bit we were a little slow uh rotating in that first half and then the second half uh We Came Out Swinging um you know we were down by two then five and seven

Uh then they went back up 11 uh and we just knew that we we didn’t want to allow this game just to slip out of our hands um it would have been one of those losses that we would have had to look ourselves in the mirror and have a gut

Check and um but we were tested tonight and we responded so I’m proud of our guys hey Kyrie I asked coach this but uh Luca gets hurt comes back has a great fourth quarter what does it do for the team when he comes back and does

That uh I mean it just eases a um you know a lot of pressure uh when when you have somebody that’s commanding double teams all the time uh you’re able to space out on the weak side and get some open looks or uh play four on three basketball three two basketball

Advantage Basketball um you know it just puts us in a good Rhythm and uh we could trust those shots down the stretch we can rely on shots down the stretch when we’re wide open getting Corner threes Wing threes or you see Maxi driving you see me driving Josh driving uh we just

Got to be ready to play off the basketball when Luka gets double and uh he’s doing a good job of accepting double teams even though we you know he wants to kind of get Buckets and and go and go at everybody um you know so we allow those possessions as teammates but

We also know we got to help him out and and be aggressive ourselves in order to get a great team win have you talked to him at all about that like the double teams because you’ve been in the league for a long time and know You’ dealt with

That as well have you give him any advice on that or I mean great players great scorers great players they’re going to do what they do man and you got to be able to adjust and uh not be so emotional about the shots that they take

It going to be good ones it’s gonna be great ones it’s going to be some ones that look tough um but we see him work on and practice all the time so when it doesn’t work in the game or does work in the game U we’re not surprised uh we just want to

Continue to feed him confidence he’s going to continue to feed us confidence and that’s my job as one of the Young ogs on this team is to continue to steady the ship stay poised and not allow uh any possessions to dictate the rest of the game for us kye you guys are

Obviously a group of professionals but as the All-Star break is seemingly in Arms Reach how do you make sure you how do you make sure you stay focused for um Wednesday’s game uh by just talking openly about it and what’s what’s uh in front of us just admitting that we’re

We’re all a little banged up we’re all a little tired coming into this last game but we don’t want to make any excuses and just like tonight if if we would have gone on the other end of us you know getting a loss we would have been

Having a gut check in here and we the tone would have been different so I’m grateful that we were able to settle in that fourth quarter but playing against San Antonio we know they’re going to come in hungry thirsty um it’s one of those uh rivalry games for us one of

Those divisional games um and I’m grateful to be part of kind of that Dallas Houston uh San Antonio Texas hold him you know going back and forth uh competitive uh games and just looking forward to the challenge after the game um you and kid after the tough clutch Victory y’all

Kind of shared a moment y’all were talking as you walked to the walk to the locker room what was that conversation about uh okay well we were talking about uh mainly about my son Kyrie uh sitting cour side and he was reminding me of a

Story uh of when he was playing and uh TJ his son was sitting Courtside and he end up uh diving into the stands and broke his collar bone uh so he was just you know reminding me that just for the safety of our game safety for my my wife

And and my kids um maybe they shouldn’t sit cour side as often when the game gets physical so he was just remind giving me advice and U me and my wife were talking about it after the game you know it’s been 3 years um you know having boys D near every game and

Nobody’s come that close and um it was scary for me I took a deep breath afterwards just want to make sure of course my kids okay kiss okay but when things happen like that it’s just spur a moment my wife does a great did a great

Job of protecting Kai and uh to anybody out there that wants to get the uh kind of the video right uh the title of that’s my son that’s not my daughter I know he has a ponytail very beautiful hair but that’s my son Kyrie so got you anything else

Dallas Mavericks superstar Kyrie Irving spoke to reporters after the victory over the Washington Wizards on Feb. 12, 2024.

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