When it comes to recovering from an 0-2 deficit in the NBA Finals, Kyrie Irving has been there, done that.
And that gives the Dallas Mavericks a lot of hope as they attempt to win a series against the Boston Celtics with the odds heavily stacked against them.
Thanks to Sunday’s gritty 105-98 win in Boston, the Celtics own a 2-0 lead over the Mavs in this best-of-seven series. Teams are just 5-31 all-time in the NBA Finals when they trail 2-0.
And Irving played a major role on one of those comeback teams. It was Irving, in fact, who buried the series-clinching clutch three-pointer over Stephen Curry that broke a tie and gave the Cleveland Cavaliers a 92-89 lead over the Golden State Warriors with 53 seconds left in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals which the Cavs won, 93-89.
That came after Cleveland dropped the first two games of that series on the road – 104-89 and 110-77 – and was left for dead. So, Irving knows that just because the Mavs find themselves in an awful 0-2 hole, that doesn’t mean this series is history.
“Being in the Finals before, down 0-2 (with the Cavs), I have a little experience in this,” Irving said. “Didn’t play particularly well in the first two games in that series, too, that I’m referring to (in 2016).
“So now I’m just really leaning in on what I’ve experienced, what I’ve learned and some of the lessons I’ve been able to make sense of in how to come back in this series, because it is going to be a possession-by-possession thing, and it is going to be the hardest thing that we’ve ever done.”
Irving’s first two games of the 2016 Finals look eerily similar to his first two games of the current Finals. In ’16, Irving scored 36 points in the first two games against the Warriors and was just 12-of-36 from the field, including only 1-of-7 from three-point land.
In the opening two games against the Celtics, Irving scored 28 points and was 13-of-37 from the floor and 0-of-8 from beyond the three-point arc. But in the final five games against the Warriors in 2016, Irving exploded for 30.8 points per game and was 60-of-118 from the field (50.8 percent) and 14-of-30 from three-point range (46.7 percent).
The Mavs are hopeful for a similar type of explosion from Irving when Game 3 of this series tips off Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at American Airlines Center. If nothing else, the Mavs need someone to help carry the scoring load alongside point guard Luka Dončić.
“(I’m) a little disappointed in myself not being able to convert a lot more on my opportunities that I have in the lane,” Irving said after Game 2. “Obviously, I’m going against Jrue Holiday and Jaylen Brown a few times, but I feel like I have the edge on certain possessions where I’ve just got to convert.
“They are pushing me to my left a little bit more. I have to be aware of some of their adjustments like I was in Game 1.”
Irving actually got off a great start in Game 2, scoring eight points on 4-of-5 shots in the first quarter. But the rest of the game he scored just eight points on 3-of-13 shots.
“Felt good in the first half, but (in the) second half the shots weren’t going down,” Irving said. “Defensively, I was out of position and got some ticky-tack fouls and took away from our flow of the game as well.
“It wasn’t all on me, but I’m definitely taking the majority of it because my teammates look to me to convert a lot of these shots and ease the burden of not just Luka, but everyone else and settle our team. We definitely made our dinner on the defensive end, but now offensively I have to play better.”
Irving and the Cavs’ historic win over the Warriors in 2016 ended a 52-year major sports championship drought for the city of Cleveland. In addition, the Cavs became the fourth 
team to win a winner-take-all Game 7 in the NBA Finals on the road.
Ironically, both the Celtics and Mavs have suffered losses in the NBA Finals while they were up, 2-0, in the series. Boston led the Los Angeles Lakers, 2-0, in the 1969 Finals, but lost that series in seven games. And the Mavs won the first two games against the Miami Heat in the 2006 Finals, but dropped that series in six games.
Fast forward to the present, and the Mavs just want to, as Irving said, “shake off the cobwebs a bit and prepare for another fight” while getting a chance to sleep in their own beds and play in front of their own fans for the first time in this series. A change of scenery may indeed just be what the doctor ordered for the Mavs.
“You want to take advantage of playing in front of your home crowd, feeling confident and being able to play in a familiar place,” Irving said. “And like I said, they handled what they were supposed to do (the) first two games.
“And now it’s our job to go home and handle our business.”
X: @DwainPrice
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