‘Fun’ key to Mavs’ bid for unprecedented NBA Finals comeback — Doncic
Dallas superstar Luka Doncic says the Mavericks must set aside the enormity of the task facing them in the NBA Finals and get back to having fun if they are to mount an unprecedented comeback against Boston.
With little over four minutes left in Wednesday’s game three, the Slovenian fouled out and was forced to watch from the sidelines as the Celtics defeated the Mavs 106-99 to take a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven championship series.
Dallas knows that no club has ever won an NBA playoff series after trailing 0–3 going into game four on Friday.
Doncic stated that in order to become the first, they need to put their past behind them, forget about the refereeing, and play the kind of free-flowing basketball that allowed them to overcome a 21-point deficit in the fourth quarter of game three.”Go back to playing fun,” Doncic said of the message after Dallas studied the game three film on Thursday.
“We talk about how we come back from (21) points in the fourth quarter in the Finals. We were having fun. We were defending. We were running. Our pace was great. Just taking good shots.”
Doncic fouled out for just the third time in his career and for the first time in the post-season, but he’s made a habit of appealing to and arguing with game officials throughout his NBA career.
He’s said before it’s a habit he should break, and he admitted again on Thursday that complaining to game officials — sometimes to the detriment of his attention on the game in progress — was counter-productive since officials will always “have the last word.”
“I just really want to win,” Doncic said. “Sometimes I don’t show it the right way, but at the end of the day, I really want to win. I’ve got to do a better job showing it a different way.”
Doncic has been outstanding offensively in the Finals, averaging 29.7 points, nine rebounds and six assists over three games despite playing with a longstanding right knee sprain and sore left ankle and a painful chest injury sustained in game one that reportedly required pain-killing injections to allow him to play.
In the fourth quarter, however, he’s averaging 2.7 points and shooting just 20 percent from the field.
But Doncic has been ineffective on the defensive end, his weaknesses showcased in his sixth, disqualifying foul on Wednesday when he was whistled for a blocking foul as he tried to defend Jaylen Brown.
Doncic has to play more strategically defensively and “understand that we’re there to protect him and help him if he does get beat,” according to Mavericks coach Jason Kidd.
For Doncic, a first-time finalist, star teammate Kyrie Irving—who shared a championship with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016—had the same advice.
“He’s not alone in this,” remarked Irving, who put more pressure on Doncic as a result of his poor shooting in games one and two in Boston. “Despite the setbacks, which included injuries and other issues, he has played as well as he can.
“He has been fully committing to it. He is not solely to blame.— A French news agency
