2024 NBA Finals Return: Boos, Courtside Mocking, and Reflection

During the 2024 NBA Finals in Boston (early June 2024), Kyrie Irving—then playing for the Dallas Mavericks—returned to TD Garden and encountered pronounced booing from the crowd, which was widely noted in game coverage and local reporting [12][9]. Photographs and arena coverage captured high-profile courtside attendees, including Barstool founder Dave Portnoy, wearing a T-shirt depicting Irving with a clown nose; The Dallas Morning News reported that the image circulated after Game 2 of the Finals [11]. In a June 4, 2024 interview published ahead of the Finals, Irving reflected on his Celtics tenure and said, "Last time in Boston, when we played in the playoffs and everyone saw me flip off the birds and kind of lose my s-- a little bit, that wasn’t a great reflection of who I am... I wasn’t my best self during that time" [9]. The combination of visible fan mockery, loud boos, and Irving's on-record contrition made the Finals return a visible chapter in the ongoing dynamic between him and Boston spectators [9][11][12].

The June 2024 Finals returns mattered because they showed the persistence of fan hostility toward Irving years after the 2019 departure and after multiple incidents; they also included a public moment of contrition from Irving in which he acknowledged poor behavior in Boston, suggesting personal reflection but not an immediate reconciliation with fans [9][11]. The courtside mocking by a high-profile fan amplified the narrative that the adversarial relationship remained a prominent part of Boston Finals coverage [11][12].

Irving's public admission that he "wasn't my best self" regarding past Boston incidents was reported alongside continuing fan taunts during the Finals, demonstrating coexisting contrition and persistent public hostility [9][11][12]. Media coverage noted both the boos and the viral images of courtside mocking; there is no record in the collected sources of a formal, public reconciliation between Irving and Celtics leadership or organized fan outreach following the Finals [9][11]. The episode closed the arc—through 2024—of repeated returns and responses without an on-record resolution in these sources.