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Luka Doncic fouled out of the Dallas Mavericks’ Game 3 loss to the Boston Celtics with 4:12 remaining in the fourth quarter, and he did so in the most ironic fashion.
By actually trying to play defense.
The Mavericks were in the middle of what proved to be a futile comeback from down 21, when Doncic tried to slide in front of Jaylen Brown in the open floor for a charge. He didn’t get set in time. The whistle blew. It went to replay and was upheld. Doncic was gone. And the Mavericks, who were trailing by just three at that point, went on to lose 106-99. Now, Boston now holds a 3-0 series lead.
That’s a very close call, and it wouldn’t have been surprising if it had been overturned given the magnitude of fouling out the Mavericks’ best player at that point of such a critical game. Again, I just can’t help but chuckle at the irony of Doncic making one of his few efforts to stay in front of a ball handler during this series and getting the hook for it.
That’s some hilarious karma — because in no world does Doncic deserve the defensive benefit of the doubt with the way he’s played against Boston. To say he’s been embarrassing defensively in this series would be an understatement.
I spent most of Wednesday afternoon going through film of the first two games and there were so many examples of Doncic’s disastrous defense to edit that I started looked around the site formerly know as Twitter to see if I could trim my workload.
Many thanks to @CelticsUnite18:
Honestly, look at that defense. He is roaming around out there like the kid you put in right field in Little League who just picks daisies all game. All told, Doncic was “blown by” 13 times in Game 2, which goes down as the most surrendered in a single game by a single defender in the last 10 postseasons, per ESPN.
It is one thing to be outmatched defensively. Doncic has slow feet and lateral movement is not a strength of his. That he’s getting hunted by Boston and beat off the dribble is not surprising. On the other end, Doncic, in fact, has been consistently beating…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/luka-doncics-defense-hits-shameful-levels-with-mavericks-on-brink-of-being-swept-by-celtics/
Author : Brad Botkin
Publish date : 2024-06-13 05:19:11
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