Luka Doncic was left quite frustrated at the end of the game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night. The Mavericks were down 113-110 in the closing stages and had a chance to send the contest to overtime, but Seth Curry’s three-pointer was blocked, and Doncic was furious.
Max Strus blocks the game tying three attempt and Luka Doncic is FURIOUS 👀 pic.twitter.com/U3ocErtP09
— Ahn Fire Digital (@AhnFireDigital) December 28, 2023
There are quite a few reasons why he’d have been so frustrated and I don’t think any of it was directed at Curry, in particular. For starters, none of his teammates came to help quickly enough when he was trapped. That led to the wayward pass to Curry, who then had to scramble to get a shot off.
You can see Doncic motioning to his teammates that they had to come closer after that shot got blocked. Adding to those frustrations would be how they lost this one.
The Mavericks were up 50-30 at one point in the second quarter and were leading 69-54 at the half. Doncic was the big reason for that, as he had 29 points in the first half. The Mavs managed to keep the Cavs at arm’s length for much of the game but then collapsed in the fourth quarter.
After taking a 105-96 lead with 6:06 remaining in the fourth, Dallas would go scoreless for the next five minutes. When Doncic finally ended the drought with a basket at the 1:05 mark, the Cavaliers were up 111-107. The Mavs had this one in the bag, but somehow blew it.
The reason why it would have stung just that little bit more was because the Cavs were undermanned. Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Darius Garland all missed the game, and the Mavs, who have now dropped to 18-13, should not have lost with all three stars for Cleveland being out.
Luka Doncic’s Frosty Postgame Press Conference
Even after he had some time to cool himself down after the game, Doncic was in quite a frosty mood during his postgame press conference. He kept his answers rather short and you could clearly see he wasn’t in the mood to talk to the media.
“We play bad,” Doncic said when asked what happened to the offense in the fourth quarter.
He did, however, take responsibility when pressed further on the fourth quarter struggles.
“Yeah, that’s on me,” Doncic stated when asked if it just came down to the Mavs missing shots. “I missed a lot of good shots, so that was on me on the fourth quarter.”
A reporter then brought up that final play, which seemingly annoyed the Slovenian even more. Head coach Jason Kidd had previously stated that the Mavericks missed a screen on the play and Doncic said they did. The four-time All-Star also pointed to rebounding being an issue for them and that it was something they had to get better at.
Luka Doncic Continued His Incredible Form Here
With the way he started the game, you thought we might see another 50-point outing from Doncic, following the one against the Phoenix Suns on Christmas Day. The 24-year-old didn’t quite manage to get there, but still had an excellent stat line of 39 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks.
Recently, his teammate Derrick Jones Jr. hailed his incredible form as he had never seen anything like what Doncic was doing. We have seen some special performances from Luka recently, and he looks set to be a strong MVP candidate all season long.
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