OKLAHOMA CITY — Luka Doncic described it as one of the most difficult games of his career.
The Mavericks desperately needed him to channel an MVP-like performance one night after the results of the prestigious award were revealed. Despite a historic season, he finished a distant third in the race, while his friend in the Mile High City accepted the honor for the third time in four seasons.
Doncic, playing through pain in both of his legs and constant heckling from a hostile fan base, delivered on his team’s needs to help Dallas even its second-round series, while simultaneously handing the Oklahoma City Thunder their first loss of the playoffs.
Faint chants of “Luka sucks!” broke out through Paycom Center midway through the fourth quarter as fans hurled insults toward Doncic. He silenced the crowd on the Mavericks’ next possession. Doncic carefully used a screen to get to his spot at the free-throw line before executing a turnaround fadeaway off one leg that looked eerily familiar to the signature shot of Dirk Nowitzki.
“Luka what?!” Doncic screamed toward the crowd, as he ran back on defense.
Doncic said he fed off the heckling of fans, including “one grown-ass man” who was talking “about my family.” pic.twitter.com/UUoZ209tLv
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) May 10, 2024
It was the defining moment of Thursday’s Game 2 that punctuated a defiant performance. A display that Doncic refused to concede to injury. A game in which he responded to the bevy of negative remarks thrown his way. And a performance that challenged the majority of MVP voters who didn’t consider his electric regular season enough.
Still, Doncic displayed the shotmaking of an MVP on Thursday, finishing with 29 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists to help propel Dallas to a 119-110 victory in enemy territory.
After the game, Doncic spoke briefly to The Dallas Morning News about the results of the Most Valuable Player award, which went to Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic.
“Obviously, I was hoping to win it,” Doncic told The News. “I kind of knew in the end, I probably wasn’t going to win it but hopefully one day I can win it.”
Doncic became the first player in NBA history to average at least 33 points, nine rebounds and nine assists in a season. After an uncharacteristic Game 1 with 19 points — his lowest point total since he scored 18 on March 18 — the Mavericks needed their superstar to have a bounce-back game.
Doncic winced throughout the game due to a nagging right knee sprain and apparent soreness in his lower left leg, which oozed blood through his white protective sleeve. He wore ice and pads on both legs while on the bench. In the first quarter of the game, Doncic face-planted on the court after getting fouled. He walked over to the sideline and hinted that his tooth was loose, as a result.
Still, Doncic had his most productive shooting night of the postseason. He drilled 4 of 5 3-pointers in the first 12 minutes of the game. He threw up his arms as a sigh of relief to celebrate the first triple, which had more lift than any of his 3-pointers in Game 1. Doncic pointed to a lack of effort as the cause of Tuesday’s loss and he made up for it Thursday with his activity on the boards. He grabbed six of his 10 rebounds in the first quarter.
He collided with Cason Wallace in the fourth quarter and hobbled back to the bench. After recovering during a timeout, Doncic drilled his fifth 3-pointer of the night, another display of resilience through the pain.
“He was Luka,” said Mavericks coach Jason Kidd. “ He was aggressive. He was taking the shots that presented themselves. He was attacking early. He wasn’t settling.”
Kyrie Irving, who scored just nine points but tied a playoff career-high 11 assists, said he didn’t notice his co-star’s sense of relief after the first 3 went through the net, but said it reminded him of the intense competitor who Doncic is.
“We know Luka very well so we’re not worried but we understand that we have to continue to feed him confidence, but it starts with him,” Irving said. “He knows that in order for us to be successful, he’s going to have to be a star on this team.”
As for the MVP race, Irving congratulated Jokic for another superb season before addressing the question about Doncic finishing third.
“If it’s not this year, then Luka’s on his way to winning MVP sometime in the future, very soon,” Irving said. “If you look at his numbers across the board and you look at how he was carrying our team, that’s nothing short of an MVP. He was coming off the World Cup, playing a lot of basketball for the last year and a half. I just look at all of those contributing factors, showcasing that he was the MVP of this league.
“But hey, it’s not up to him or us. It’s up to the voting system that they have. Hopefully that changes in the future to where we can have a say-so as players because I think that matters that our voices are in there too. We have the utmost respect for us as peers but it would be good to have our vote in there as well. We’re basketball savants. We’ve been playing since we were younger. That’s no disrespect to the media or anybody else that is voting, but we need to be included in that.”
MVP is an award that Doncic coveted this year, and still desires. If it’s meant to be, it will have to wait for another day. But does the snub motivate him to perform better?
“Yeah, of course. Who don’t want to win the MVP in the NBA?” Doncic told The News. “It’s the best league in the world.”
