Kyrie Irving shook off the rust just in the knick of time for Jason Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night.
Playing for just the second time since New Year’s Day, Kyrie scored 25 points and added five rebounds and five assists as the Mavericks defeated the Western Conference leading Oklahoma City Thunder 106-98.
“It looked like the rust was gone after that Denver game,” J-Kidd said. “I thought he was kind of back to his rhythm, his flow.”
The Mavs broke out in the second half, scoring 41 points while limiting OKC to just 17 as they established a 20-point halftime lead. But Coach Kidd admitted his team came out flat in the third quarter, allowing OKC to get back in the game. However, they closed strong and pulled out a huge win as they fight for playoff position in a loaded Western Conference.
“I thought tonight was a really good test for our group,” J-Kidd said. “We played really well in that first half and then kind of were flat there in that third quarter, shot a lot of threes, didn’t make a lot of threes, and then I thought just being able to stay the course, the guys on the bench and in the game, just said keep staying together, we’ll work through this and in that fourth quarter we did.”
The game also saw several skirmishes break out between Dallas and OKC players, and Coach Kidd that’s the nature of the beast when you’re division and conference rivals and have played each other in the postseason as well.
“We’ve played each other a lot here in the last years, so it’s going to be chippy,” Jason said. “Guys are competing. Oklahoma City is a really good team, well-coached, and they’re playing really good basketball right now. We played them in the playoffs, it was chippy then, it’s chippy during the regular season.”
Friday’s win moved the Mavs to 2-1 against the Thunder this season after defeating them in last year’s Western Conference Semifinals as well. The two teams will wrap their regular season series next Thursday night in Oklahoma City.