Skip to main content

Mavs star Luka Doncic drops truth bomb on getting double-teamed in epic win vs. Heat

 



While many would have thought that Luka Doncic would be frustrated after frequently getting double-teamed in the Dallas Mavericks’ game against the Miami Heat, that wasn’t exactly the case.


Luka finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds and six assist, but he had a hard time shooting the ball and made just five of his 19 field goal attempts. The Heat employed a switch-heavy defense highlighted by double-teams on the Slovenian, and it worked in limiting the production of the young All-Star.


Unfortunately for the Heat, Doncic can do a lot of things with the ball. Double-teaming him up means opening the floor for his teammates, and he dissected the Miami defense to perfection as the Mavs staged a huge second half comeback. Following the win, Luka shared his thoughts on their opponents’ defensive strategy and highlighted why he didn’t have a hard time adjusting to it.


After trailing by eight points at the half, the Mavs turned the table on the Heat with a balanced offense led by Luka Doncic and a stingy defense anchored by Maxi Kleber.


There are a lot of examples that show how Luka Doncic used the Heat’s double-team against them, the best perhaps is his long pass to Jalen Brunson that led to a Davis Bertans triple.


Another one is a no-look dish to Maxi Kleber early in the third that completely fooled the Heat and caught them off-guard.


Teams can put heavy emphasis on guarding Luka Doncic, but if it isn’t clear by now, the Mavs superstar will always find a way to get his team rack up points. Just ask Erik Spoelstra and the Heat.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

From Deep: At long last, Nikola Jokic's Nuggets can envision getting to the top of the mountain

  Jamal Murray tore his ACL on April 12, 2021. Leading up to that night, he'd been playing at an All-NBA level for two months: In a 25-game stretch, Murray averaged 24.1 points on .509/.459/.935 shooting splits, 4.2 rebounds and 5.2 assists. He was even more efficient than he was in the bubble playoffs, and his defense had improved, too. Murray only got to play with Aaron Gordon, the Denver Nuggets' big trade-deadline addition, for five games. They won them all except the one in which Murray got injured. In 110 minutes, their new starting five scored slightly more efficiently than any iteration of the Kevin Durant-era death lineup in Golden State and defended like a top-five team. Two Nikola Jokic MVP awards later, Murray is back. So is Michael Porter Jr., who signed a five-year extension about a year ago and needed back surgery nine games into the 2020-21 season. The Nuggets remember how easily everything slid into place with Gordon in the mix. Newcomer Kentavious Caldwell-Pop...

Klay Thompson to sit out Warriors preseason games in Japan as Kerr says he needs more time to ramp-up

  Klay Thompson may have returned healthy to the Golden State Warriors last season, but the scars from his two missed seasons are still quite visible. The Warriors played their first of two preseason games against the Washington Wizards on Friday and will play another on Sunday, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that Thompson will not be playing at all during the trip to Japan. "Just feel more comfortable giving him a little more of a ramp up," Kerr said before Friday's victory over Washington. "He's just not quite ready to play at this point just based on where, you know, we're so early in camp. We just want to be safe and make sure he gets a good ramp-up before he plays in games." Typically, so little time to ramp up wouldn't be a problem for a veteran in a preseason context. The games tend to be so low-impact and demand so few minutes out of a team's best players that they can safely jog through them. Stephen Curry and Draymond Green played 1...

LeBron James says he has 'no relationship' with Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  It's not a matter of if LeBron James passes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the No. 1 spot on the NBA's all-time scoring list, it's when. James sits just 1,326 points away from passing the Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Lakers legend, a milestone that should happen at some point this season given James is still performing at peak levels and is coming off a year in which he averaged over 30 points a night. If he averages around the same amount of points as he did a season ago for the Lakers, James could break the record somewhere in the middle of the season, assuming he stays healthy. It's a highly anticipated moment heading into the season, but in regards to LeBron's thoughts about and his relationship with Abdul-Jabbar, he didn't have much to say on the matter. Following the Lakers first preseason game Monday night, a reporter asked James what his thoughts were on the Lakers legend and if the two had any relationship, to which LeBron gave a very short answer. "No...