By james art 
On Saturday night, the Dallas Mavericks hosted the Boston Celtics in Texas for a rematch of the 2024 NBA Finals.
However, they were blown out by a score of 122-107.
Kyrie Irving finished the loss with 22 points, four rebounds, five assists and one block while shooting 11/23 from the field and 0/3 from three-point range in 42 minutes of playing time.
After the match, he spoke about his former team when he met with media.
Irving: “Outside of JT and JB, when those other guys are doing like D-White, when he’s hitting some tough threes and they’re hitting nothing but the bottom of the net, and Jrue Holiday is hitting some tough ones. This makes them special; that’s what makes them great, they’re kind of criticized based on their season this year, but if you look at their first 42 games. Pretty similar compared to last year … I’ve been scouting them a lot, it’s a well-coached basketball team and so are we.”
With the loss, the Mavs fell to 24-22 in 46 games, making them the ninth seed in the Western Conference.
Irving is in his third season playing for the franchise.
The future Hall of Famer is averaging 24.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 1.3 steals per contest while shooting 48.3 percent from the field and 42.5 percent from three-point range in 36 matches.
The Mavs and Celtics will have one more game (Feb. 6) in Boston, Massachusetts.