It took Kyrie Irving 604 days to play a regular-season home game again. When he finally did, he needed one quarter to make it count. Irving made all four of his shots in the first period of the Mavericks’ 120-96 win over the previously unbeaten Oklahoma City Thunder, three of them from three, and finished with 15 points, four assists, two steals and two blocks in 27 minutes, with Dallas still working under a minutes restriction.
The box score says a quiet night.
The calendar says otherwise.
Kyrie Irving Home Return: 604 Days After the ACL Tear
Wednesday was Irving’s first home regular-season game since March 3, 2025, when he tore the ACL in his left knee. He missed all of last season, and his first three games back were all on the road.
He sat out Saturday’s home opener on the second half of a back-to-back, and that game was also without Cooper Flagg, who was out with a shoulder sprain. That made Wednesday the first time the two stars played together at American Airlines Center in a regular-season game. Afterward, Irving said there are times on the floor when he has to pinch himself and remember he’s really back.
Flagg Set It Up, Irving Hit It
It started with a pass. Flagg’s first-quarter assists set up three threes, two of them Irving’s and the third the first of Daniel Gafford’s career. Irving’s 25-footer off a Flagg pass with 10.4 seconds left made it 33-28. He scored 11 in the opening period, 13 in the first half, and Dallas was plus-23 with him through three quarters. When Oklahoma City cut it to 65-61 in the third, Dallas answered with a 13-2 run that began with an Irving floater off another Flagg pass.
Flagg finished with 26 points and eight assists. The Mavericks hit a season-best 16 threes on 45 attempts, and the Thunder shot 5-of-32 from deep. Coach Dusty May said Dallas is “really, really good” with Irving on the floor, and in this case the evidence was easy to find.
The Honest Caveats
Irving scored just four points over the final three quarters, and after hitting all four first-quarter shots, he missed his last five from three. He sat for good with 5:33 left. The Thunder were also short-handed, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shot 7-of-19. None of it changes what happened. It does mean we should watch the next few games before treating this as proof of anything. Still, Dallas has won two straight to get to 3-2, and it was Dusty May’s first home win as a head coach on his second try.
The real milestone was never 15 points. It was seeing Irving and Flagg on the same floor, at home, with the shots falling and the building loud. After 604 days, that’s the part that counts.
Kyrie Irving Home Return Marked a Milestone, and It Wasn’t the 15 Points