BOSTON –Whatever alleged “curse” the Boston Celtics had on Kyrie Irving, it’s over now.
A member of the Celtics from 2017-19, Irving had an abysmal 0-13 record against the Celtics since he left that franchise to sign a free agent contract with the Brooklyn Nets on July 7, 2019. But the veteran guard finally broke the alleged “curse” and was on the winning end of a game against the Celtics when the Dallas Mavericks routed Boston, 122-84, on Friday night at American Airlines Center.
“It’s taken time, I tell you that,” Irving said. “It’s difficult because as a competitor you try not to display all your emotions out there to give an edge.
“When you’re going against some of the best of the best, they’re going to use everything to their advantage. I think they’ve been able to do that. That’s why I referred to just having my number or knowing my game very well.”
Irving scored 21 points on 10-of-18 shots in 31 minutes in helping the Mavs blast the Celtics. He also had six assists and four rebounds in getting whatever monkey off his back in 
terms of not being able to defeat the Celtics.
“I think I was able to take a step back, too, talk to my teammates a little bit more about just what that pressure can feel like,” Irving said. “Not just from losing to a team, but just going against a team and knowing that they’re doing everything possible to stop you.
“But it’s a team game, so I have to really rely on my teammates. I think we all did a great job of that (Friday) — continuing to support each other.”
While Irving has finally gotten a win over the Celtics since his departure, he knows he’s still 0-7 in games played i
n Boston since he left Beantown. He hopes to break that alleged “curse” when Game 5 is played Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Boston.
“You saw all those Celtics fans in (AAC on Friday),” Irving said. “They travel in packs. When we go to Boston, there’s going to be a bunch of them yelling a whole bunch of crazy stuff still, but I think we’ve been able to grow and face kind of this adversity head on.”
Meanwhile, the Mavs wound up winning Game 4 by an incredible 38 points. That’s the third-largest margin of victory by a team in the history of the NBA Finals, topped only by the 42-point whipping Chicago did to Utah in 1998, and the 39-point spanking the Celtics gave the Los Angeles Lakers in 2008.
No NBA team has ever rallied to win a best-of-seven series after being down, 3-0, and no team has ever won the championship after losing a game in the Finals by at least 38 points. But one of those rare occasions will occur before this series is in the books.
“We’re figuring out each other in a crazy way during the highest stage of basketball,” Irving said. “It’s a beautiful thing, but it also can be chaotic if you don’t know how to stay poised through it.
“I think we’re figuring out each other throughout those phases.”
At one point in the second half of Friday’s game, the Mavs led the Celtics by a whopping 48 points (115-67). It’s the largest lead any team has built in the NBA Finals in a
t least 50 years, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
“It was how we started off the game,” Irving said. “Our ability to go home, get some rest, not having the same 48 hours to get our bodies ready and recover, so it felt like it was pretty much the regular season in terms of that aspect.
“For us we wanted to make it very much more respectable than it has been in the past few games in terms of limiting our mistakes on the defensive end. We’ve been one of the best teams in the league at getting stops. That’s been our identity.”
And the Mavs finally used their identity to get plenty of stops Friday as they limited the Celtics to 36.2 percent shooting, which was their second-worst field goal shooting percentage of the season. Also, the 84 points the Celtics scored were the lowest Boston has produced in a game this season.
In addition, the 26 points the Celtics scored in the paint were their lowest of the season. And the -38 plus-minus turned in by Celtics guard Jrue Holiday was the worst by any player in a Finals game over the last 25 years.
In other words, this was total domination on the Mavs’ part.
“I think we play better offensively when we’re getting stops, able to push the pace, get easy opportunities in transition, which we weren’t doing the past few games as often,” Irving said. “It felt good to be on the positive end of seeing our hard work reward us, especially on the defensive end.”
For Irving, it probably also felt good to finally break that alleged “curse” of not being able to defeat the Celtics.
X: @DwainPrice
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