Slovenian guard Luka Doncic had a game-high 35 points, to go with eight assists and five rebounds, in Wednesday’s NBA Cup quarterfinal loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Yet, the Los Angeles Lakers were never really in the contest, trailing by 12 points at the half and by 17 at the end of three quarters.
Three-time Lakers NBA champion James Worthy felt that Doncic failed to put his imprint on the game despite a gaudy stat line.
“It’s funny how Luka can have this type of stat line, and then it still not be noticed,” Worth said on the Spectrum SportsNet postshow. “It’s not the most important thing in the game, it’s not a big factor.
“…It wasn’t impactful numbers that he had, and the way San Antonio was countering anything that the Lakers put up, even his 35, with fastbreak points.
“They just kind of deleted this performance. It wasn’t a dominant performance. It was a good stat line, but it didn’t really have a phase on the game that much.”
Luka Doncic Defense Criticized
Further to Worthy’s point, the Spurs feasted on the open court against the Lakers’ defense, scoring 27 fast-break points and another 11 second-chance points from turnovers. A lot of that blame went to Doncic and Austin Reaves, the Lakers’ high-scoring backcourt duo that isn’t exactly equipped to stop athletic guards.
Doncic, in particular, faced a lot of criticism, even on the air from Stan Van Gundy, for his lackluster effort in getting back in transition. The Spurs kept attacking him and Reaves with their three-guard combo of Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox and rookie Dylan Harper. With Doncic as the primary defender, Castle (3-of-5 FG), Fox (3-of-5 FG) and Harper (3-of-4 FG) had a field day.
Danny Green Agrees
Danny Green, another former Lakers NBA champion, agreed with Big Game James.
“Luka did what Luka does — 35, eight and five. But we’re used to see him light up differently. This didn’t seem impactful,” Green said.
“He helped the Lakers on the offensive end of the floor, but what hurt them most were his defensive turnovers.”
The Spurs were allowed to shoot 17-of-38 from three (45%), which also played a huge role in their win, added Green.
LeBron James also acknowledged that his team needed to improve its transition defense to compete against the better teams in the West.
“I think defensively, we understand that on-ball attack is very important. But first, get back in transition; we can’t give up a lot of transition points as we did tonight,” he said, via The Athletic’s Dan Woike. “And then we gotta contain guys off the dribble. So we will continue to get better with more film, more communication … just help each other out.”
Lakers head coach JJ Redick admitted after the loss that his team has been “consistently exposed” on the defensive end this season, having given up over 130 points to lottery-bound teams like the Jazz, Clippers and Pelicans.
“I think being able to contain the basketball is probably the most difficult thing for our team right now,” Redick said, sounding off the alarms about the Lakers.
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