Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving was playing a quads match of Call of Duty: Warzone with Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell before he dropped 71 points on the Chicago Bulls on Monday, ESPN NBA writer Tim Bontemps wrote in a Tuesday tweet.
“I can tell he was locked in,” Kyrie Irving said with a smile during a postgame press conference. “I can tell. We were locked in to the Call of Duty game, but I had to get off early because I had to get off and take a nap. You can tell he was locked in. We had a brief conversation, and you can just tell. Little things like that.”
Donovan Mitchell shattered Irving and Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James’s Cavs scoring record with 71 points in Monday’s overtime win over the Bulls, taking the record Irving set in 2015 and James set in 2017 by the time regulation ended at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. Records were meant to be broken, Irving said, adding he was happy the 26-year-old guard was able to break into historic territory for the Cavs.
The former first-round pick used to play Call of Duty: Warzone with his Utah Jazz teammates. He dropped a team-leading 28 points in a 10-point victory over the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena the same day he called his teammates out for purposely reviving him last in an early-2021 tweet. Mitchell scored six more than guard Mike Conley, who jokingly claimed he never meant to pick the then-two-time All Star last in a response tweet.
Mitchell streamed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with then-Utah Jazz teammate Royce O’Neale and Fortnite streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins in early 2020, according to Bleacher Report. He participated in a two-team, best-of-seven Call of Duty tournament hosted by SLAM just days before, playing with Bulls guard Zach LaVine, now-Real Madrid forward Mario Hezonja and Twitch streamer Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel as his team nearly clawed back from a 3-0 deficit.