On the night Luka Doncic returned to Dallas, the Mavericks condensed his American basketball career into an emotion-filled two minutes full of game-winners, highlight passes and trick shots that helped connect the Slovenian star to the Texas city.
As Doncic watched the footage, occasionally hiding his eyes behind a white tear-filled towel, one moment in particular stood out as most special.
It was Game 2 of the 2024 Western Conference finals, his team down by two points, the final seconds ticking off the clock. Rudy Gobert, the league’s four-time defensive player of the year, stood out at the three-point line attempting to stop the inevitable from happening.
Doncic, in one of the biggest moments of his career, moved Gobert to the left, to the right and then back toward the paint, opening a window for Doncic to make the big shot in the big moment.
Read more:NBA insiders break down the Lakers-Timberwolves playoff series
He celebrated with a scream, joy and anger combining for uncontainable passion and an image that’ll define Doncic.
“I like big games,” Doncic said with a half-smirk on Thursday. “Playoffs is a fun time.”
The Lakers are about to see if Doncic’s reputation as one of the league’s premiere big-time players carries over to their stage. After he was dealt from the Mavericks, some people wondered how Doncic would fit in Los Angeles, the star player living mostly in the shadows off the court. Would he even want the kind of stardom that Los Angeles could give him?
That was the wrong question. It wasn’t about being a star; it was about having the stage.
“Typically guys that love being on stage and love the performance aspect of it are typically elite players and great players,” coach JJ Redick told The Times after the Lakers’ win in Dallas. “And like when I think about Luka, it’s performance art. He’s on stage. He’s, he’s in some ways ad-libbing… and there’s an element of art to it. The same way that an actor on a Broadway show goes on stage. It’s the live aspect of being able to perform and then feed off the energy in the building.”
And that moment with Gobert encapsulates how electric those performances can be.
Since Doncic is so big and because he’s so in control on offense, teams are forced to try all different kinds of defensive strategies to slow him down. Sometimes, teams will double team. Sometimes teams will blitz multiple players at him to force pass. And, sometimes, teams will surrender and switch, putting players like Gobert on an island against one of the NBA’s best one-on-one players.
“Always since I came to the league, I like to play pick and roll,” Doncic said. “I like to get a center on me. That’s what I’ve been doing since I came into the league.”
Read more:How Austin Reaves earned his place among the Big 3 on the Lakers
Through experience and inherent intelligence, he’s become an expert on how to dissect the ways teams try to stop him.
“He thinks that there’s not a person in the world that can guard him,” Redick said Wednesday. “So I think he takes that seriously.”
Ever since he was a rookie, Doncic has played with tremendous confidence when the moments were the toughest, Dorian Finney-Smith said.
“He always wants the ball in the big situations. He always wants that moment,” Finney-Smith said. “I’ve seen that from the beginning since his rookie year. You would’ve said like, Harrison [Barnes] probably was our go-to guy, but end of the game, it just magically became his time to shine.”
While the Timberwolves have one of the NBA’s best defenses and multiple players who they’ll use to try to stop Doncic, the Lakers have the luxury of spreading the offensive responsibility to an emerging star in Austin Reaves and the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in LeBron James as complementary options.
After some rough minutes for the three on the floor, the Doncic-James-Reaves lineups are plus-10.8 points per 100 possessions over 103 minutes in their last five games of the season.
And the Lakers and Doncic understand that there are still ways for those three players to develop even more chemistry to the gains they’ve already made.
While Doncic was far from alone in taking down Minnesota in the Western Conference finals a year ago, he was in the center of the spotlight.
“It’s a different team,” Gobert told reporters Thursday. “But it’s still Luka Doncic.”
And it shouldn’t be a surprise if he ends up there again, another performance of his show and his favorite scenes, with everyone watching him try to take down a giant defender.
“At certain points in the game, he just feels like nobody can guard him. Even if Coach telling us to put certain guys in the action, Luka don’t care,” Finney-Smith sad. “Sometimes he’s just yelling, ‘Just bring ’em Doe.’ Don’t care who it is.
“Sometimes he just gets in a mode where you know whoever in front of him is just a cone.”
And sometimes, that cone has to hear Doncic celebrate with a scream.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
On the night Luka Doncic returned to Dallas, the Mavericks condensed his American basketball career into an emotion-filled two minutes full of game-winners, highlight passes and trick shots that helped connect the Slovenian star to the Texas city.
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As Doncic watched the footage, occasionally hiding his eyes behind a white tear-filled towel, one moment in particular stood out as most special.
It was Game 2 of the 2024 Western Conference finals, his team down by two points, the final seconds ticking off the clock. Rudy Gobert, the league’s four-time defensive player of the year, stood out at the three-point line attempting to stop the inevitable from happening.
Doncic, in one of the biggest moments of his career, moved Gobert to the left, to the right and then back toward the paint, opening a window for Doncic to make the big shot in the big moment.
Read more: NBA insiders break down the Lakers-Timberwolves playoff series
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He celebrated with a scream, joy and anger combining for uncontainable passion and an image that’ll define Doncic.
“I like big games,” Doncic said with a half-smirk on Thursday. “Playoffs is a fun time.”
The Lakers are about to see if Doncic’s reputation as one of the league’s premiere big-time players carries over to their stage. After he was dealt from the Mavericks, some people wondered how Doncic would fit in Los Angeles, the star player living mostly in the shadows off the court. Would he even want the kind of stardom that Los Angeles could give him?
That was the wrong question. It wasn’t about being a star; it was about having the stage.
“Typically guys that love being on stage and love the performance aspect of it are typically elite players and great players,” coach JJ Redick told The Times after the Lakers’ win in Dallas. “And like when I think about Luka, it’s performance art. He’s on stage. He’s, he’s in some ways ad-libbing… and there’s an element of art to it. The same way that an actor on a Broadway show goes on stage. It’s the live aspect of being able to perform and then feed off the energy in the building.”
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And that moment with Gobert encapsulates how electric those performances can be.
Since Doncic is so big and because he’s so in control on offense, teams are forced to try all different kinds of defensive strategies to slow him down. Sometimes, teams will double team. Sometimes teams will blitz multiple players at him to force pass. And, sometimes, teams will surrender and switch, putting players like Gobert on an island against one of the NBA’s best one-on-one players.
“Always since I came to the league, I like to play pick and roll,” Doncic said. “I like to get a center on me. That’s what I’ve been doing since I came into the league.”
Read more: How Austin Reaves earned his place among the Big 3 on the Lakers
Advertisement
Through experience and inherent intelligence, he’s become an expert on how to dissect the ways teams try to stop him.
“He thinks that there’s not a person in the world that can guard him,” Redick said Wednesday. “So I think he takes that seriously.”
Ever since he was a rookie, Doncic has played with tremendous confidence when the moments were the toughest, Dorian Finney-Smith said.
“He always wants the ball in the big situations. He always wants that moment,” Finney-Smith said. “I’ve seen that from the beginning since his rookie year. You would’ve said like, Harrison [Barnes] probably was our go-to guy, but end of the game, it just magically became his time to shine.”
While the Timberwolves have one of the NBA’s best defenses and multiple players who they’ll use to try to stop Doncic, the Lakers have the luxury of spreading the offensive responsibility to an emerging star in Austin Reaves and the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in LeBron James as complementary options.
Advertisement
After some rough minutes for the three on the floor, the Doncic-James-Reaves lineups are plus-10.8 points per 100 possessions over 103 minutes in their last five games of the season.
And the Lakers and Doncic understand that there are still ways for those three players to develop even more chemistry to the gains they’ve already made.
While Doncic was far from alone in taking down Minnesota in the Western Conference finals a year ago, he was in the center of the spotlight.
“It’s a different team,” Gobert told reporters Thursday. “But it’s still Luka Doncic.”
And it shouldn’t be a surprise if he ends up there again, another performance of his show and his favorite scenes, with everyone watching him try to take down a giant defender.
Advertisement
“At certain points in the game, he just feels like nobody can guard him. Even if Coach telling us to put certain guys in the action, Luka don’t care,” Finney-Smith sad. “Sometimes he’s just yelling, ‘Just bring ’em Doe.’ Don’t care who it is.
“Sometimes he just gets in a mode where you know whoever in front of him is just a cone.”
And sometimes, that cone has to hear Doncic celebrate with a scream.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter on all things Lakers.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
