Cavaliers' Irving on Celtics' physicality: 'I ain't no soft dude'

Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving refuses to be bothered by a few hard fouls.

The Boston Celtics tried to beat the Cavaliers with physicality in Game 3 as Celtics guard Evan Turner picked up a flagrant foul trying to wrap up LeBron James and Irving was sent to the floor after Celtics forward Jonas Jerebko caught him with a hard foul.

However, despite the Celtics' bruising tactics, Irving was not fazed.

"My thought process and my killer mindset is that I'm just going to kill you even more now," Irving told Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group.

"If I lose my composure, it's not a good look. It's not something that's in my DNA. Don't get me wrong, I ain't no soft dude, but in the game of basketball, (expletive) happens. So you just continue to play."

For his part, Jerebko downplayed the incident, stating that he just wanted to prevent Irving from a potential and-one opportunity.

"I just didn't want him to shoot the ball," Jerebko said. "Other than that, you're just in the game and playing the game. He's one of the better players in the game so I didn't want him to get an and-one."

But the physical play hasn't affected Irving, who has managed to keep his cool and composure. Irving has been tremendous in his first go-round in the postseason, posting averages of 23 points, three rebounds and 4.7 assists on a true-shooting percentage of 59.6 percent for the Cavaliers, who lead 3-0.