Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Kyrie, you know, you've mentioned many times during this postseason, you've been waiting
00:04 seven years to get back to the stage.
00:07 How does it feel and especially coming off the way things went last year, you know, after
00:12 you got to Dallas?
00:13 It feels great, man.
00:16 Definitely don't take this moment for granted because of how hard we had to work to get
00:19 here and we had to earn our spot into the NBA Finals and we had to go against some great
00:24 opponents, OKC, Clippers, Wolves, and I feel like they got us better as a team.
00:31 They really challenged us on the defensive end, made us focus in, and I thank every single
00:35 one of them like I did the previous two series for making me better.
00:40 You know, it has been seven long years, but it's also felt like the right amount of time,
00:44 you know, in order to reward myself, be in the locker room with my teammates and enjoying
00:50 it.
00:51 You know, there's a long time coming, so we are going to enjoy this, but we obviously
00:54 know this is just a pit stop in the journey and we got to get ready for, you know, that
00:58 court turning gold, as I like to say.
01:00 You know, the shoes turn gold, the jerseys turn gold, and you know, as a kid, that's
01:05 what you dream of getting to is the Finals and being able to play against the best of
01:10 the best with the whole world watching.
01:12 And tonight, Luke obviously comes out and, you know, he's hitting shots, he's sneering
01:17 at the crowd.
01:18 That's kind of the full Luke experience to start things off.
01:22 What's your feeling when you see him in that mode to open the game?
01:25 Man, I was enjoying it just like everyone else was.
01:28 He had 20 points, I think, in like six minutes or seven minutes, and you're just watching
01:32 a special performance take place.
01:34 But you know, as a teammate, you just want to continue to do the little things to bring
01:39 the lead a little bit further along and just continue to play well.
01:43 We were happy where we were, but we weren't satisfied because we knew it was a long game.
01:47 But when Luka starts off the game like that, I mean, we're a tough team to beat.
01:50 So you know, kudos to him having a great series, a great playoff run in general.
01:53 But just leading us that way and being able to kind of ease the tension a little bit and
01:59 the emotions, you know, starting off the game, you see our guy, Luka, scoring 20 like that,
02:05 I mean, it eases everybody's pressure a little bit.
02:08 What was going through your mind at zero?
02:10 You guys have the ceremony, you're walking into the locker room with the trophy.
02:14 What's kind of racing through your mind at that time?
02:17 Man, just trying to enjoy the moment with my teammates and just think about, you know,
02:23 the way we felt during shootaround, all the preparation it took to get to this moment.
02:29 We couldn't avoid the future if we wanted to, you know, it was coming anyway.
02:32 So you know, I just had that utmost confidence when I was going to sleep last night, waking
02:37 up and shoot around, like I said, and just feeling like we were going to play one of
02:40 our best games.
02:41 And you didn't know how it was going to happen, but I felt that way.
02:44 And that's the type of confidence that, you know, I felt majority of this playoffs is
02:49 just, you know, no matter what's going on in the beginning of the game, middle of the
02:53 game, before the game, you know, our words of affirmation and positivity go a long way
02:57 and just making sure we settle the group, get ready.
03:00 For someone who got here early in his career, then had an absence and then got back to it,
03:05 where's your appreciation level for it?
03:07 I had three years of losing.
03:08 Yeah, I had three years of losing in Cleveland, as people like to remind me of, where I did
03:13 nothing without certain guys on the team.
03:14 So you know, I like to relish in those challenges because when you are a young player, you do
03:21 take it for granted to a certain degree.
03:23 But now that I'm in my 30s and I'm able to kind of stand on my own square more comfortably,
03:28 more confidently and know what my presence holds, know what my leadership is capable
03:32 of doing when I'm around good people and they're supporting me selflessly.
03:38 You know, you just look back at all the failures, you know, just on the other side of success.
03:43 So just continue to chop wood, carry water, stay poised, make sure that we keep the main
03:48 thing the main thing and acknowledge how far we've grown and how long it took to get to
03:53 this moment.
03:54 So I try to quantify the last seven years, but it's really been my whole entire career.
03:58 You know, this is a long career and I like to look at that way.
04:00 It's a journey.
04:01 So grateful to be here with my teammates, though, and our staff and everybody doing
04:05 the little things for us to stay prepared and, you know, just give us that good energy,
04:09 man.
04:10 I felt it all around us tonight.
04:11 Kyrie, to that point, as this team came together and kept getting better, kept getting better,
04:16 your teammates, your coaches, they talked a lot about the impact you have off the court
04:20 and your leadership style and your voice and really your story feels like it's changing
04:24 a bit right now.
04:25 On the one hand, I know you've always tried to block that out, but what does it mean to
04:29 have some of that energy starting to get recognized out of this?
04:33 I mean, the way you interact with your teammates, the way you lift the guys up and coming off
04:39 a couple of years of a lot of negativity and that happened, the energy.
04:43 Just in the public.
04:44 I mean, Brooklyn, Boston, you're going to see your own team now.
04:48 I mean, the mood has changed.
04:51 How does it feel to have it recognized?
04:52 What do you mean?
04:53 Like, recognized for what?
04:56 The way that you're impacting the team.
04:58 Oh, OK.
04:59 No, no, I'm sorry.
05:00 I just was trying to figure out where you...
05:01 No, I think I'm grateful because it was an easy road and I was able to grow as a person
05:08 way beyond, as quick as I was growing as a player.
05:11 And when you're in a professional environment such as this and you can only be judged by
05:15 your own court performances and what people say off the court and they don't know who
05:19 you are, I think that's a little unfair, but that's the life we live in and life is not
05:23 fair all the time.
05:24 So I just stopped being a kid towards this industry and really grew up and grew my wings.
05:31 I had another phrase I wanted to say, but I just developed a mentality to be able to
05:36 brush off a lot of that stuff and realize that when they're talking about me or saying
05:42 things about me as a teammate, it's been a lot of people.
05:46 It's too many people to name, but that's not where my focus has been.
05:50 It's always been on making sure my teammates understand who I am and what I want to accomplish
05:55 with them and being selfless in my approach and also realizing that everyone's going to
06:00 have a past.
06:01 Everyone's going to be judged for that.
06:03 I think putting your best foot forward and focus on the future is the best place to be.
06:08 All the stories and narratives are going to exist forever.
06:10 I'm sure I'll hear it until I retire, but again, this is what comes with this industry.
06:15 This is a very young league.
06:17 It's 75 years, 76 years in the making.
06:20 People think it's like 100 plus years like other leagues, but there are no rules in this
06:24 and being a professional and coming to work every single day, that's what I want to be
06:29 remembered as and my off the court aspects of making people better and them making me
06:36 better is something I like to lay my hat on too because it matters as a human being.
06:40 I've been there for these guys.
06:41 They've been there for me.
06:43 I've told them some very intimate things, very vulnerable things about who I am and
06:47 what I've dealt with and they've been able to really shower me with the support and love
06:51 that's needed for any human being, not just because I'm Kyrie Irving and the way that
06:56 they see me in the public eye.
06:59 They really protect me and I protect them and I'm grateful for them.
07:01 That's all I've ever asked for is from an organization or my teammates is for them to
07:05 protect me the same way I protect them because I go out of my way to speak good things about
07:09 people to be in the right place for them and understand that human emotions get the best
07:15 of you, but how you respond is how you're going to be remembered.