Mavericks' Luka Doncic joins Michael Jordan in exclusive playoff club with latest spectacular NBA postseason

The season is now over for Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks, as they ran out of gas and talent against the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference finals. They never led during Thursday night's Game 5, and the end officially came with a 120-110 defeat.

While it was a painful night, this was still a season and a playoff run to remember. Despite being under .500 on Jan. 1, and starting the first round without Doncic due to a calf injury, the Mavericks made it to the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2011. Along the way, they upset the top-seeded Phoenix Suns with a historic Game 7 win on the road.

There's so much you can say about this team, but it all starts with Doncic, who led the way in spectacular fashion. He averaged 31.7 points, 9.8 rebounds and 6.4 assists during the playoffs, and in the process joined Michael Jordan in an exclusive playoff club. This was the third consecutive postseason in which Doncic has averaged at least 30 points, five rebounds and five assists. Jordan, who did it five times from 1989-93, is the only other player in NBA history to accomplish that feat.

"I'm proud as hell of 'em," Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said. "We evolved as a team. We saw Luka blossom -- not just as an amazing player, which we already knew, but as a leader. As somebody who can make a team better. There aren't superlatives enough to describe Luka. Not his play, but just everything else. Every other element of who he is as a person and who he is in the locker room is just a joy to watch."

In addition to his incredible numbers, Doncic also had some prime-time moments where he truly emerged on the big stage. Most notably, the way he took over the second-round series against the Suns and almost singlehandedly willed his team back from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits. In Game 7, he went into Phoenix and embarrassed the Suns, matching their point total (27) in the first half while laughing after every bucket.

There are never any guarantees in the NBA, especially in a loaded Western Conference, but as long as Doncic is around the Mavericks are going to have a chance to compete.

Comments

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...

Crossover World

Search This Blog