“I had to go deep within myself… I was just throwing jabs and things were landing against the best” - Kyrie Irving on the title winning season in Cleveland, says the fan base was through the roof
Kyrie Irving joined his fellow teammate Kevin Durant’s “The ETCs with Kevin Durant” podcast for Wednesday’s episode. During the conversation, Irving spoke with Eddie Gonzalez about what his time in Cleveland meant for him.
Irving spent his first six seasons in the NBA with the Cavs after being drafted with the first overall pick of the 2011 draft. Kyrie would go onto win Rookie of the Year that year, have an All-Star year his following season (2012-13), his first All-Star game MVP award in the next (2013-14). Then his first NBA finals appearance in 2014-15, and finally, his first NBA championship in the legendary 2015-16 season.
Kyrie explained:
“I had to go deep within myself to bring out all of these tools that I had learned since I was learning fundamentals. And just put them on display on the biggest stage.
"I think that was one of the highest levels of play that I played, but it wasn’t the highest for me that I look back on, just because it was a short window … I was just throwing jabs and things were landing against the best.”
During Kyrie’s 2015-2016 season in Cleveland, he averaged 19.6 points, 3.0 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.1 steals per game across 53 appearances. He made a large contribution to helping the squad push towards the NBA Finals run that made history for the city.
Kyrie Irving notably shared the floor with LeBron James that season, and the duo had much of the effort themselves. But they did have help nonetheless. James had the highest point average for that years squad at 25.3, also averaging 7.4 rebounds, 6.8 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.6 blocks per game.
Behind LeBron and Irving in points was Kevin Love with 16.0 points a game. Kevin Love was a big supporting player for the Caveliers, as he played 77 games in the season. Irving only appeared in 53. The only player to show in more games than Kevin Love was Tristan Thompson, at 82.
Irving went onto comment on the help he received from his teammates during the season:
“I had a lot of help, like, also confidence that was being given to me. Like, ‘Kai, just don’t even worry about how many attempts that you’re shooting, don’t worry about where you’re shooting, just be you and we’re king to do this as a collective group. But we just need you to be aggressive.”
Well, the advice must have worked. As the season proceeded and the team stepped into the door to the NBA Finals that would put them into the history books, Kyrie showed up huge.
The finals ended up a seven-game series where Cleveland bested the dominant Golden State Warriors after being down 3-1 in the series. Irving averaged an impressive 27.1 points per game for the series. His best performance was a legendary display of shooting in Game 5 of the series, where Kyrie would finish with his series high of 41 points.
What is incredible even beyond that is the fact that he shot 70.8% from the field through 24 attempts, and 71.4% from the three through seven attempts. Irving made sure to seal the deal on that second victory for Cleveland that would start rolling them back into the series.
Closing to the end of his Cleveland comments in the podcast, Kyrie expresses his love for the city:
“That’s all I got a shout out the whole entire Cleveland area for that man.”