In a trade that sent seismic shock waves throughout the entire NBA three weeks ago, Slovenian superstar Luka Doncic was slated to face his former team for the first time of his career.
“Thank You Nico [Harrison]” chants broke out in an enthusiastic display from the crowd as Doncic tallied a triple-double with 19 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists. This helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a 107-99 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
LeBron James scored 16 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter and admitted the team knew how much the game meant to Doncic.
“We understood as his teammates that we wanted to get this win for him… As his teammates, we wanted to back him in every way, shape or form,” said James.
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Doncic spoke on how emotional of a night it was after facing the team he spent seven seasons with, just weeks after being blindsided by the blockbuster trade that sent him to Los Angeles for star big man Anthony Davis.
“The closure is going to take a while, I think… It’s not ideal, but like I said, I’m glad this game is over. There’s a lot of emotions, but we go little by little, and every day is better,” said Doncic.
The 25-year-old point guard made back-to-back threes in the first quarter and immediately let out a demonstrative scream towards the Mavericks bench.
Doncic joined LeBron James and Russell Westbrook as the only three players to record a triple-double against all 30 teams.
“I thought he handled it well. He clearly was worked up to start the game,” said Lakers coach JJ Reddick on Doncic. “That’s the expected, but I thought he settled in. I think some of the stuff with our offensive shooting woes was due to some organization problems and some spacing problems. That affected everybody and it affected him as well.”
Kyrie Irving scored a game-high 35 points for Dallas and shared a familiar handshake with Doncic before the game. Klay Thompson added 22 for the Mavericks and made five threes.
Max Christie, who was also traded to the Mavericks from the Lakers, scored all 10 of his points in the first half.
“Awkward as s–t,” said Irving when asked how it felt to play against Doncic. “It was awkward but now I can talk about the emotions of it. Yeah, it was awkward but at the same time it was fun. We got a chance to feel like we were in practice going at each other. That was a good reflection point.”
“Kyrie is my Hermano. We go beyond basketball. It was good to see those guys. We went to wars together, and it was really fun to see them all,” Doncic said.
The Lakers took a moment to play a lengthy tribute video for Davis in the first quarter, where the future hall of famer and NBA champion, waved back at the crowd with much appreciation as he watched the video.
“We know what AD was for this franchise from the moment we got him… Obviously our friendship goes without saying, he’s one of my best friends. It was great to see him get that recognition in that moment,” said James.
The Lakers held a 28-20 advantage after the first period and led by as many as 15, 57-42 after James made a jumper with 2:34 left in the second quarter.
Irving made a three-pointer and Christie made two triples to cut their deficit to 59-51 at halftime.
The Mavs made five three-pointers in the third and outscored the Lakers 26-19 in the period to get within one, 78-77 going into the fourth.
However, James completely took over the game by scoring 16 points in the fourth and Dallas was unable to complete its comeback.
Irving made a three-pointer to get back within two, 96-94 with 3:49 remaining but that was as close as Dallas would get before Dorian Finney-Smith, Rui Hachimura and James all had dunks in the closing minutes to put the game away, giving the Lakers a 107-99 victory.
“We don’t win the game if Bron doesn’t take over and we don’t win the game if [Dorian Finney-Smith] doesn’t make three massive plays down the stretch,” said Reddick.
I thought we did a great job with the emotion of the game and understanding what our gameplan was. Our job was to try to find a way to win. We put ourselves in the position and came up short,” said Mavericks coach Jason Kidd. “The guys fought, we were down 16 and didn’t let go of the rope. We kept fighting and found a way into this game. We could win either way, but they were the better team tonight.”
The Lakers will play the Clippers (32-26) on Friday and Sunday at Crypto.com Arena.
