Luka Doncic had arguably his worst game of the 2022 Playoffs in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Golden State Warriors. While the Warriors have been the favorites to win the series for most, many expected Doncic to single-handedly help the Mavericks have a competitive series against the Warriors.
In Game 1, Doncic and the Mavericks did not look competitive. They had an uncharacteristically horrible shooting night, but Doncic couldn’t do anything through his offensive arsenal to give the Mavs a shot to win the game. A lot of credit goes to Andrew Wiggins for his amazing job guarding Luka, but there has to be more than that, right?
Doncic has given the likes of Kawhi Leonard a harder time than he did Andrew Wiggins in his 20-point performance in Game 1 on 33.3% shooting. So what is it that seems to be causing this slowdown for Doncic?
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The clips of the Warriors’ defense from Game 1 prove that they did everything they could to stop Luka. Coming off a Game 7 against Phoenix, Luka got tired early, and the video shows how he gets noticeably sluggish over the course of the quarter. However, it is also noticeable that Doncic still managed to create great looks for himself and his teammates, but the shots just didn’t get converted.
The Mavericks can’t live by the three and die by the three when they have a player with Doncic’s skill-set on the squad. However, it was evident that the Mavericks were playing with fatigue as their offense was three-point heavy and not focus on cuts or drives around the rim.
Stopping Luka Doncic is a herculean task that we haven’t seen anybody in the Playoffs accomplish. The Warriors and Andrew Wiggins did a great job of limiting his impact on the game, but whether they can consistently adjust to Luka’s unorthodox style of play is something we will see over the course of the series.
