I owe him an apology! What is the level of Irving in this year's playoffs?

Basketball Big History Ball

2024-06-02 14:25Published in Fujian

As we all know, the Mavericks have advanced to the finals.

In the Western Conference Finals that have ended, Doncic played an absolute MVP-level performance, averaging 32.4 points, 9.6 rebounds, 8.2 assists and 2.2 steals per game in 5 games, with a three-point shooting rate of 47.3%/43.4%/84.6% and a true shooting rate of 62.7%.

Among them, G2, Doncic had a triple-double of 32+10+13 in the whole game, and scored a three-pointer, G5, Doncic scored 20 points in a single quarter in the first quarter, and directly defeated the Timberwolves in one quarter.

In the final Western Conference MVP selection, Doncic was unanimously elected, which can also show how good his performance is in the Western Conference finals.

However, in the Western Conference Finals, Irving's performance cannot be ignored.

Although Irving didn't get a single vote in the final MVP vote, his performance was also quite outstanding after 5 games, averaging 27.0 points, 3.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game, with a three-point shooting rate of 49.0%/37.5%/80.8% and a true shooting rate of 58.5%.

Zooming in to the entire playoffs, Irving played in 17 games, averaging 40.3 minutes per game, scoring 22.8 points, 3.9 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.2 steals, shooting 48.5%/42.1%/82.8% from three, and 59.3% from the field.

It's worth noting that Irving averaged 14.6 points per game in the second half and 7.5 points per game in the fourth quarter, both of which rank first among all players in the Finals.

No one who has watched the game will doubt how good Irving is, he is a player who can play indiscriminately, without the need to warm up, change the opponent's defensive strategy, and whether you have a box of Chet Holmgren or Gobert, Irving can always burst inside to make a kill, or respond to the game with an unreasonable head-on three-pointer.

And, Irving's defense, as a player who is not known for defense in his career, Irving's defense in this year's playoffs is also quite amazing, statistically, Irving averaged 10.3 shots per game, and the opponent's shooting rate decreased by 5.1%, of which the three-point shooting rate dropped from 39.6% to 29.4%, a decline of more than 10 percentage points.

In the three rounds, Irving's main defensive players: Harden scored 17 points on 7-of-19 shooting, Jay Wei scored 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting, and Conley scored 8 points on 3-of-9 shooting, and no one took advantage of Irving.

Another statistic that proves Irving's importance even more, this year's playoffs:

- When Irving is on the floor, the Mavericks' offensive and defensive efficiency is 118.0/109.8, and they outscore their opponents by 8.2 points per 100 rounds

- Irving is not on the court, the Mavericks' offensive and defensive efficiency is 89.8/109.2, and the opponent is 19.4 points per 100 rounds (exaggerated)

The 32-year-old Irving can play in the Mavericks back to the Finals and play such an important role in the team, which should be unexpected by many media, pundits and fans, which can also be seen from last year's trade.

At that time, the Mavericks only paid Dinwiddie, Finney Smith and a first-round pick in order to get Irving, and the Lakers, another rival, were not even willing to send two first-round picks away for Irving.

Even so, ESPN still gave the Mavericks only a D in their trade rating, indicating that they are not optimistic about Irving's arrival at all.

Of course, we all know the end result that Owen slapped the ESPN experts in the face, and at the same time, he also slapped a lot of people who looked down on him.

It's worth mentioning that just after Irving returned to the Finals, former Lakers assistant coach Handy posted on social media about Irving: "I usually keep my opinion on certain things, but not today, there are a lot of people in the basketball world who owe this guy (Irving) an apology, and there are people who try to bury this guy and erase his career, just based on what you hear and not what you know completely."

Advice to these unwise people, if you don't fully understand a person, you shouldn't talk about them, the media and others always have their narratives, but not many people can really understand (the truth), keep doing your thing Owen, Bean (Kobe) will be proud. There's more work to be done, but damn it, it's nice to see this guy in the Grand Final! ”

From 2017 to 2024, it took seven years for Irving to return to the Finals, and what is more impressive than his skills is his mental growth.

After the elimination of the Timberwolves, Irving said: "I'm grateful because the road hasn't been easy, and I've not only grown quickly on the court, but I've also improved tremendously on an individual level.

When you're in an NBA environment, people can only judge you by how you perform and what you say off the court, but they don't know who you really are, I think that's unfair, but that's the reality.

Life isn't always fair, so I stopped being childish about the industry and really matured and spread my wings, and I've now cultivated a mindset of being able to ignore a lot of things. ”

Further back, after the Mavericks eliminated the Thunder, Irving couldn't hold back his tears in the locker room to thank his teammates, and then said at the press conference: "I waited a long time to get back to this position, but it's still far away, looking back on my career, I don't take it for granted, I made it to the division finals three years in a row, but I haven't been in this position for a long time." ”

Can you believe that Irving, who was once seen as an unstable factor, could one day become the locker room leader of a team?

Recalling that seven years ago, after the Cavaliers were eliminated by the Warriors, James once said to Irving: "We'll be back, we'll be back." ”

At that time, Owen would never have imagined that it would take seven years for him to return to this stage next time, and in these seven years, he has experienced too many things that are not understood, but fortunately, he is standing here again, but, as his idol said, the task is not over yet, and the upcoming finals, facing the Celtics, who are full of grievances and have lost ten in a row, look forward to Irving's performance.

View original image 99K

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•