The Larry O’Brien trophy is headed to Cleveland.
The NBA champions now reside in Northeast Ohio.
But New Jersey is celebrating as well.
Just ask St. Patrick’s High School principal and coach Chris Chavannes. He hosted about 35 of Kyrie Irving’s former St. Pat’s teammates at his home for Game 7 of the NBA Finals, a game in which Irving went off for 26 points, including arguably the biggest shot of the series, a three-pointer with less than a minute left that put the Cavs up by three in a game they held on to win 93-89, completing a historic comeback from down 3-1 in the series. After Chavannes called Irving following his Game 1 debacle, Irving averaged 27 points in the series, the most ever for one of LeBron James‘ teammates in the Finals.
“It was awesome to watch the kids go crazy chanting defense like we were playing a game and needed a stop,” Chavannes told SNY.tv. “Then after Kyrie would make a play they would go bananas.
“You can’t imagine the atmosphere when Kyrie hit the three. Pandemonium to say the least.”
Had Kyrie teammate over for the game. Great day to be a celtic. pic.twitter.com/Fi4TZWeDxk
– Coach Chavannes (@chrischavannes) June 20, 2016
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The Cavs have strong Jersey ties.
Irving is a Montclair, N.J., native who starred at Elizabeth (N.J.) St. Patrick’s before spending one season at Duke.
J.R. Smith hails from Lakewood, N.J., and won the Gatorade New Jersey Player of the Year award while playing for coach Dan Hurley at St. Benedict’s Prep. He then went straight to the NBA from high school.
Reserve forward Dahntay Jones is a Garden State native who played at Rutgers before transferring to Duke.
And Canadian big man Tristan Thompson once drove 10 hours from Toronto to Newark with teammate Myck Kabongo because they had heard that Smith had played at St. Benedict’s and then gone onto an NBA careeer. Thompson played briefly at St. Benedict’s before he and Hurley parted ways.
Before they were @NBA Champs: @Cavs – @TheRealJRSmith & @RealTristan13 played for @dhurley15 at St. Benedict’s Prep pic.twitter.com/s70KbByYRO
– Rhody MBB (@RhodyMBB) June 20, 2016
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So it’s no surprise that Chavannes and former St. Pat’s coach Kevin Boyle texted throughout the game and took great pride in the Cavs’ win.
How about the cavs owner no mention of Kyrie in after game interview. Wow someone showed their rear end.
– Coach Chavannes (@chrischavannes) June 20, 2016
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Back in February 2009, after Irving went for 21 points in an 88-62 rout of St. Benedict’s, Boyle told me that Irving had a chance to be the best guard to ever come out of the Garden State.
That was a lineage that included Bobby Hurley, Jay Williams and Dajuan Wagner, among others.
I asked Boyle if he was sure, and he smiled and said yes.
Seven years after that night, Irving hit the biggest shot of his life with under a minute left — over Steph Curry.
“In the back of my mind I’m thinking, on the road for us to go up three it would give us a lot more cushion than just a layup or something like that,” Irving said. “And I was just thankful that I got enough room to make the shot.”
“That shot he made, that three-point shot, it’s probably one of the biggest shots in NBA history,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said.
A year ago, Irving, the former St. Pat’s star suffered an injury to his left knee in overtime of the Cavaliers’ Game 1 loss to the Warriors that kept him out the rest of the series. Without both Irving and Kevin Love, James carried the load and took the Warriors to six games.
Smith had to step up and become the No. 2 option behind James a year ago, and wasn’t up to the challenge. In the Finals, he averaged 11.5 points on 31 percent shooting and 29 percent from deep.
Asked to sum up his performance after Game 4 a year ago, Smith said, “Horseshit.”
This year, Smith went for 12 points in Game 7, including hitting several key threes along the way.
After the game, the former Knick was in tears as he honored his parents.
“I’ve been in a lot of dark spots in my life, and if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to get out of it,” Smith said. “But they are who they are. They fought with me. They yelled at me, they screamed at me, they loved me, they hugged me, they cried with me, and they always stuck by my side no matter right or wrong. I know a lot of people don’t have their parents in their life, their mother, their father, but I’ve got the best two you could ask for, I swear.”
“To hear people talk bad about me, it hurts me because I know it hurts him, and that’s not who I am. And I know he raised better, and I know I want to do better,” Smith said. “Just everything I do is for my parents and my family. I mean, I don’t really — the cars are nice, the houses are nice, but none of this matters without them. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t know where I would be, honestly. If it wasn’t for them, if it wasn’t for the structure and the backbone that I have, I wouldn’t be able to mess up and keep coming back and being able to sit in front of you as a champion.”
Phil Jackson and the Knicks, of course, traded both Smith and Iman Shumpert to the Cavs and didn’t so much as get a draft pick back. Now both players have won an NBA championship — Cleveland’s first major pro sports championship since 1964.
And back in Jersey, they are celebrating.
Adam ZagoriaZagsBlog
