Dave Portnoy and Kyrie Irving (Image Source: X/Dunk Insights, Getty Images)

Ever since he departed from the Boston Celtics, Kyrie Irving has been on the radar of the franchise’s loyalists. Amid all the boos and chants, what grabbed the headlines was the Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy’s ways of ridiculing the Dallas Mavericks guard. On seeing his stunts, Boston’s former assistant coach, Evan Turner, felt it needed to stop.

“Dave Portnoy is a lame for that,” said Turner. “To a certain extent and I don’t even want to use like no bad language or like whatever like come on bro get off that man dk bro. Y’all be like on, like, get off his dk G. It went from.. It looked crazy G.” (After 7:00 min)

It started with Portnoy giving out free tickets for Game 1 of the NBA Finals to the Boston fans who gave a hard time to Kyrie on his return to the TD Garden.

Things escalated in Game 2 when the businessman showed his t-shirt featuring Kyrie’s face. But the guard’s hater took it to another level as Kyrie’s face had a nose resembling a circus clown.

From the time the Mavericks entered the series, nothing has been going in their favor. Besides heavy backlash for their lacklustre performance, the spotlight fell on the team’s star Luka Doncic and like every other time this season, Kyrie came to his defense.

Kyrie Irving Reacts to Luka Doncic Fouling Out

Following two back-to-back losses, the Mavs entered the court on Wednesday in the hopes of grabbing a win. However, they ended up with a 106-99 loss and a lot of the blame fell on Luka Doncic and his actions.

As the game was nearing its end in the final quarter, the Slovenian guard fouled Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, which made him leave the court as it was the former’s sixth foul play in the game.

When Kyrie was asked about Doncic’s foul in the post-game presser, defending his teammate, the former champion said, “We just let it breathe a little bit. Let the human emotions come out and just give him a hug. That’s it, man. It’s easy to point the finger at just him and say, ‘You could be better.’ That’s easy to say, I think he knows that. It’s just reiterating that I got his back, we all have his back. It’s a tough game, a tough call.”

The Mavs need to buckle up on Friday for their fourth encounter with the Celtics as a slip in that game could cost them the championship.