Luka Doncic has a long history of officiating complaints and Game 3 of the Finals on Wednesday was no different. The Mavericks superstar fouled out with 4:12 remaining and felt he was victimized by unfriendly whistles, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon.
“We couldn’t play physical,” Doncic said. “I don’t know. I don’t want to say nothing. You know, six fouls in the NBA Finals, basically I’m like this (motioning with his palms up). Come on, man. Be better than that.”
The sixth foul, in which Jaylen Brown tripped over Doncic’s knee, was challenged by coach Jason Kidd. However, Kidd knew it wouldn’t be overturned, Brad Townsend of the Dallas Morning News writes.
“I was stuck. I had to challenge it,” Kidd said.
All but two of the fouls whistled against Doncic occurred in the fourth quarter.
We have more on the Mavs:
- Doncic is feeling the burden of being a superstar on the NBA’s biggest stage, Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic opines. Doncic simply hasn’t excelled at both ends of the floor, which is why his team is staring at a 3-0 deficit in the series. Thompson adds that the All-NBA guard will eventually will join the ranks of the ring bearers once he learns how to elevate his game in these situations.
- Doncic’s defensive shortcomings are the elephant in the room, Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports notes. That’s been a major obstacle for the team to try to overcome. “He’s got to be able to guard and understand that we’re there to protect him and help him if he does get beat,” Kidd said.
- The team’s belated rally was sparked by rookie Dereck Lively, who implored his teammates to keep their heads up even as they fell behind by as many as 21 points. “He rallied us tonight, Came to the bench and just told us to keep believing,” Kyrie Irving said, per Tim Cato of The Athletic. Irving and the veterans are impressed by Lively’s maturity. The big man struggled during the first two games and was quick to take the blame. “For him to take accountability like that after Game 2, to be 20 years old, that’s a big step,” Irving said. “The journey is the reward. I always told him this mission is bigger than us. It’s just not solely focused on this year. We have a future together where we’re going to continue to grow as teammates.”
Seriously that was not good defense that Luka was playing. He was over aggressive on defense and most of them was easy calls. More likely Luka was frustrated that Celtics got away with calls so he started playing over aggressive.
Donic was a matador on defense. No effort. Turnover after Turnover. Celtics scoring while Luka complaining. 50 percent from the line. More likely Luka is being exposed.
Being exposed? He’s averaging 30/9/6 for the finals. He literally didn’t miss a free throw last night and had a 2/1 assist to turnover ratio. Luka is a much better defender than he gets credit for. He’s European and there isn’t much bad to say about his game so it’s lazy and easy to say that. Every team in the league would do backflips to get an “exposed” superstar like Luka. Why don’t you put down the pipe.
Because he is European?? Dismissed boy.
Have you never heard people say that Europeans are soft and don’t play defense? Not that it’s accurate but you have never heard anyone say this? If not you need to dismiss yourself because you must have started watching yesterday.
Pathetic
He might be a better defender than we give him credit for but that still only elevates him from terrible to below average.
Haha maybe you are right. I would say he’s about league average personally. I think the fact that he is so good on offense makes his defense look worse than it really is. But he absolutely has work to do on that end of the floor there is no debate about that.
So you’re saying Luka aint bright?
I concur.
Lebron sent out his henchmen to slander Luka a little bit.
Seriously? This is just *sad*.
Boston is playing amazing defense. Especially White and Holiday. I have never seen two players playing almost immaculate defense back to back 3 games. Mavs had to make tough shots after though shots. That makes Luka irritated.
Jrue has a real chance at finals MVP for me… His poise and timing has been immaculate…
Should come 2nd to Brown…
Well said
Luka has a point on his sixth foul. That was a textbook charge. Terrible call.
Trying to draw a charge when you have 5 fouls is incredibly stupid.
What choice did he have? Brown was charging at him and extended the arm. Give me a break.
Oh boo hoo, Luka had “no choice but to try and draw a charge.
6 fouls on the fat guy.
link to twitter.com
Luka has no business trying to take a charge with five fouls in crunch time of a close finals game. He committed stupid foul after stupid foul all game.
Brown was right on him and was charging at him. Extended his arm. What should he have done side stepped and let him go to the hole? Try to poke the ball out? “Stupid foul after stupid foul” would have been nice if the Celtics got called for some of those similar “stupid fouls” they got away with the whole game. Not trying to make excuses there is no doubt the Celtics are the better team that has played better this series. But come on.
Yes he should’ve sidestepped. Luka’s is master of court awareness offensively and while I do think he’s better than people make him out to be on defense he still has mental lapses like that. If he lets Brown fly by there were still two defenders waiting for him at the rim, even if he isn’t aware of that he’s got to keep the fact that he has five fouls at the forefront.
He committed a lot of stupid fouls. Going at White 88 feet from the basket after he’d already secured the rebound. Trying to poke the ball away from Pritchard from behind. Trying to take a charge at the three point line.
Luka is a great player but he’s got keep his emotions in check. He whines at the ref when he misses a shot. He whines at the ref when makes a shot. He commits frustration fouls. He’s only 25 so hopefully he grows out it. Honestly it’s the only thing holding him back from being the unquestionably best player in the league instead of being in the top three.
Your sadness is clouding your judgment.
trying to get a charge at mid court is not only foolish, but almost always a charge.
I have no idea what play you watched but Luka was not set. His best argument was that Jaylen forced the contact, but again, he was not set at all. Easy call, every ref makes that call.
It was a bang bang play. I could have seen it either way. He wasnt completely set and Brown was out of control and led with his arm. But one call certainly didn’t decide the game. It just felt like the refs let the Celtics get away with a lot of stuff that the Mavs didn’t. But that’s the way it goes sometimes. And I think you are 100% correct he needs to stop barking at the refs so much. That doesn’t accomplish anything except putting your defense in tough spots.
It was a 50/50 call since he wasn’t set but still, should’ve just funneled him instead except JB prob would’ve got an easy shot. Sort of a lose lose situation there.
Dallas have shot more free throws than Boston in the series. Luka committed some silly fouls and was showing his frustration based off how the series is going. Tatum gets hit attacking the basket regularly and can’t buy a call. Boston are just more talented, more experienced and more grown up.
Luka moved at the point of contact… Refs had no choice but to call it…
Had he stayed still easy charge, he was set and Brown didn’t avoid him… Luka just moved at the wrong time…
As a Mavs fan it is unfortunately obvious that the Celtics are the superior team especially at the defensive end. But my goodness it would be nice if both teams were allowed to play with the same level of physicality. Not saying that’s the reason they are in this spot. But it sure as hell doesn’t help.
Luka is the best offensive player in the game but frankly his defense is horrendous and say what you want but defense wins championships
I wouldn’t say horrendous. When he wants to he can be average to slightly above average. Two problems. He spends so much energy at the offensive end that he sometimes catches his breath on defense. Never a good idea. But also he allows his frustrations to carry over into his play at that end. Hopefully as he ages and matures we see less of that. Because it’s like you said defense wins championships.
Is he the best offensive player in the game? He slows the game down and just engulfs the ball so nobody else can do anything unless he sets them up.
Kyrie was hot last night, Luka did nothing to get him the ball.
The Mavs are not losing this series because of Luka’s defense that just incorrect. His defense has been bad however the Celtics scored less than 108 points 12 times in the regular season, they were 4-8, in the finals they are 3-0. If you had told the maverick’s that the Celtics would not score more than 108 points in any of the first 3 games the Mavs would have signed up for that immediately.
Also to further the point Luka played 38 minutes last night, in those 38 minutes the Mavs were +9. In the 10 minutes he was off the court they were -16. So you can’t blame his defense last night because when he was on the floor playing defense the Mavs won those minutes decisively.
The Celtics are winning this series because their defense has been amazing, the Celtics starting 5 is excellent which trumps the Mavs 2 headed monster, kyrie no showed games 1 and 2, and also the Mavs outside of Luka and Kyrie obviously look like the moment is too big. I don’t know what the stat is know but after games 1 & 2 the Mavs outside of Luka were shooting 8% on open threes. The issue is nobody on the Mavs can’t score, other than Luka nobody can get anything going offensively other than kyrie and that was only last night.
All of this to say yes Luka is not a good defender but it’s also not one of the top 5 reasons the Mavs are in this position.
Agree 100%
Luka just needs a better Robin…
Someone who can cover for his defence instead of someone Luka has to cover for…
Totally agree. Boston’s defense is the best i have seen for quite sometime. Especially White and Holiday. They never gave easy shots to Kyrie or Luka. As you say, others feel that the moment is too big for them. Mavs need way better ball movement and other players must involve to grab at least a game or two.
Boston offense is far from perfect. At the beginning of fourth quarter everyone was shooting pull up jumpers without any ball movement. It was hard to watch. I still see that their best players are more iso than team players although they are way better in that department this year.
Luka would rather complain than play D. Luka plays a physical game. Except on D. He has not bought into team D. He gets more BS calls than any other player. Yet he complains more than twice as much as Bron ever did.
Luka uses and wastes more energy arguing and complaining about calls. Than he does when playing D. NBA needs to handle this crybaby ……..
Luka clearly needs a defensive all star next to him…
He needs a Jrue or a Kawhi… He needs someone to be his Pippen…
Luka cant be the best defending guard on the floor… Game 3 showed the worst case scenario when he has to try too hard to be that…
Luka does need to up his defensive awareness and improve, but he needs someone better than him at defence so he isn’t making up for someone else’s shortcomings on that side of the ball…
Luka great player just needs to get in shape. WTF happened to THJ he’s disappeared completely. Luka your time will come just not now. The West is tough though to get back to the Finals anytime soon.