Dallas Mavericks’ guard Kyrie Irving opened up about his postgame embrace with teammate Luka Doncic following their team’s thrilling victory over the Houston Rockets.
Irving, who delivered a remarkable performance with a season-high 48 points, revealed that the embrace stemmed from Doncic’s exhaustion and the immense effort he put forth during the game.
“At the end of the game, Luka was like, ‘I’m tired, man.’ That’s why I just hugged him, man, at the end of the game because he left it all out there, and he did all that he could,” Irving said.
“Everybody in this league is laboring in some sort of way, especially as we head into the playoffs. I just feel for him. I feel for a lot of my teammates and I know they feel for me.
So that was kind of like again one of those in-the-moment type of things for us as brothers to embrace each other. We know how hard we’ve worked and how much work it took to get to this point in the season.
“There’s still nothing guaranteed in terms of our seeding and where we’re placed, but we just know what it feels like to be on this side now together as a duo where we’re committing to the defensive end, the offensive end, we’re committing to our leadership roles and we’re committing to our teammates and they’re doing the same.
“So I think you’re seeing the reciprocity when you see the laughs or you see the smiles, or you see us feeling good about each other. And even when we’re down, we’re still giving each other positive encouragement and that goes a long way in any work environment.
“So when the game is done, the buzzer sounds, it’s good to give your brother a hug, let him know ‘Hey, man, you did a great job tonight. You left it all out the floor, Now let’s go get some food in. Let’s go see our families and leave this game behind.'”
