Luka Doncic is making history every time he sets his floor on the court during the playoffs. He is averaging 40 points through the first two games of the second round against the Phoenix Suns. However, his numbers aren’t helped by his defensive performance and the Mavericks going down 2-0 against the Suns.
We have seen this script with Doncic before, as he put up historic scoring numbers for his age against the LA Clippers in the previous two seasons. However, both those series’ also ended with losses for the Mavericks. Doncic’s offensive wizardry has helped him put up incredible numbers, and now he is on pace to do something incredible.
While LeBron James is the all-time leader in points scored in the playoffs, he is not the scoring leader in terms of points average. That distinction has belonged to Michael Jordan for decades. However, Doncic and his 35-point performance in Game 2 has catapulted his scoring average to 33.5, ahead of MJ’s 33.4.
Luka Doncic in the loss:
35 PTS
5 REB
7 AST
13-22 FG
5-10 3P
He is now 1st all time in playoff PPG with 33.5. pic.twitter.com/yqsefvxNRa
— StatMuse (@statmuse) May 5, 2022
With good health, Doncic can possibly keep this pace up for a very long time. MJ’s playoff scoring numbers seemed unbreakable, but Doncic is making a strong push through the first 18 playoff games of his career.
Jordan played 179 games in the playoffs and kept that average up, so the task ahead is very tall. Another difference is that MJ won multiple championships while impacting both sides of the ball, something Doncic is still yet to do.
However, that is the beauty of watching a 23-year-old basketball savant like Doncic develop in front of our eyes. He has been pushing historic numbers for the last three seasons and has shown improvement on defense since 2019. Even Jordan failed to get out of the first round in his first three tries.
Luka has a long career ahead of him and if he keeps this up, he may genuinely push Jordan away from this distinction permanently.
