Connect with us

Dallas, TX

Why Mavericks’ Luka Doncic was happy to let others shine in 2024 NBA All-Star Game

Published

on

Why Mavericks’ Luka Doncic was happy to let others shine in 2024 NBA All-Star Game


INDIANAPOLIS — With 1:22 left in the first half, a Western Conference 3-point shot attempt missed and Luka Doncic, rather accidently, was there to grab the offensive rebound on the bounce.

The Mavericks superstar’s ensuing slow-motion layup gave him his first points of the night, typifying the ho-hum nature of another easygoing Doncic All-Star performance during the East’s 211-186 victory over the West on Sunday night in the 73rd NBA All-Star Game in Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Anyone who hoped Doncic might use the NBA’s biggest non-playoff stage to inject his name more prominently into the end-of-season Most Valuable Player conversation could immediately see that he had no intention of being offensively assertive – as now has been in case in all five of his All-Star appearances.

“People come in here and play 40 minutes, they don’t want to get injured,” Doncic said. “Everybody just gets out of the way. I don’t know how to fix that. I just follow the lead.”

Advertisement

Mavericks

Be the smartest Mavericks fan. Get the latest news.

The “highlight” of Doncic’s 7-point, 7-assist, 7-rebound night was his uncontested third-quarter dunk that gave himself four points and cut the East’s lead to 127-105. Hey, no hating: Doncic only has one dunk as a Maverick this season.

Advertisement

Shortly after his dunk, Doncic missed an attempt at the rim, later sheepishly telling TNT during a timeout: “I was feeling myself too much. I don’t dunk, guys.”

After the game, Doncic laughed and said: “On the second one, I was tired.”

Considering that Doncic has averaged a career-high 37.4 minutes while averaging an NBA-best 34.2 points per game and largely carrying an injury-ravaged Mavericks team much of the season, perhaps it was common sense to essentially rest even during his 23 minutes of court time Sunday.

In five All-Star appearances, Doncic has yet to score in double-figures and has totaled 35 points – in other words, one more point than his current season average.

Appearances to the contrary, Doncic says: “Every year I’m excited to be here. All the people you see. The players you share the locker room with. It’s an unbelievable feeling.”

Advertisement

Fortunately for the Mavericks organization and fans, rookie center Dereck Lively II had more than enough fun for both Dallas representatives together while playing in Friday’s Panini Rising Stars games and attending as many weekend festivities as he could.

In fact, Doncic seemed to get more of a kick out of seeing Lively than anything he personally did this weekend.

“Just a great kid,” Doncic said. “He listens to everybody, never complains. And on the court he looks like he’s played 10 years already in this league, so I’m really happy that he’s on our team.”

Doncic, who turns 25 in nine days, no doubt is one of the brightest stars in the NBA constellation, but when it comes to All-Star games he’s more than content to let everyone else shine.

Naturally this weekend’s center of attention was Lakers superstar LeBron James, at age 39 making his record-breaking 20th All-Star appearance.

Advertisement

James was asked before Sunday’s game whether he sees his potential replacement as the face of the NBA, a mantle he accepted a few years after Michael Jordan’s retirement.

“We have a great home a group of guys in our league right now that playing spectacular basketball and also are being great off the floor, as well,” he said. “But I don’t think you just just say ‘OK, this guy is the next person to be the face’ of anything.

“You have to just let it happen organically and see what happens. But we have some great, great players in this league that can carry anything if they put their minds when they want it.”

As was the case after his previous four All-Star game appearances, Doncic will try to disappear from public view and rest as much as possible before the Mavericks’ season resumes Thursday with a home game against Phoenix.

Dallas has the same record, 32-23, as it did after 65 games in 2020-2021, when it finished 52-30 and made a run to the Western Conference finals.

Advertisement

This Mavericks team has won six straight games and is 3-0 since the acquisitions of Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington. It remains to be seen whether this team can gel as seamlessly during the final 27 regular-season games as the ‘21-’22 team after the additions of Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans.

Conversely last year’s team, despite the February acquisition of Kyrie Irving, finished 38-44 and missed the playoffs. Does that put more onus on this season’s stretch run?

“Every year is big,” Doncic said. “Every year I want to win the championship. So every year it’s the same goal. I think our team is really good, so we’ve just got to get through the last part of the season with good motivation.”

Perhaps it was rookie optimism, or maybe it was the excitement of his first All-Star weekend, but Lively said he believes the Mavericks have the attention of Western Conference contenders.

“I feel like we’re the darkhorse that everybody doesn’t want to look at,” he said, “but we’re in the back of their minds.”

Advertisement
    NBA All-Star weekend: Look back at performances from Mavs’ Luka Doncic, Dereck Lively II
    ‘2 for 1 .. analytics’: Best moments from Mavs star Luka Doncic at 2024 NBA All-Star Game

Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.





Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Dallas, TX

‘To live and work in Dallas is to love Dallas’ and other committed quotes of the week

Published

on

‘To live and work in Dallas is to love Dallas’ and other committed quotes of the week


“If you are super rich, $20 is nothing to you … if you’re poor, $20 is a massive amount. And so the use of toll roads is very much about creating a system of transportation that is reliable for people who have the ability to pay the toll cost.” — Yonah Freemark, a senior research associate at the Washington, D.C.-based Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute, commenting on North Texas’ toll roads and the managed toll lanes. (Monday, The Dallas Morning News)

“I didn’t have much time to make a decision. I had to choose between prison and leaving Iran. With a heavy heart, I chose exile.” — A statement by Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is competing in the Cannes Film Festival. Rasoulof said he was sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging and confiscation of property, which will add to a previous sentence. (Monday, Associated Press)

They don’t go like a battering ram to attack the ship and sink it, and they might do so if that were their intention.” — Alfredo López, a marine biologist and spokesman for the Atlantic Orca Working Group, commenting on a group of killer whales that sunk a sailboat near the coast of Gibraltar (Tuesday, El País)

“We should not go back to business as usual, right? I have a child and a child on the way, My wife was scared out of her mind, not knowing what was going to happen, right? And nobody thanked us.” — Tyree Dean, an English teacher at Wilmer-Hutchins High School who was part of a walkout of students protesting the lack of security after a shooting incident at the school in April (Tuesday, KXAS-TV NBC5)

Advertisement

Opinion

Get smart opinions on the topics North Texans care about.

“It’s a wonderful celebration, and we hope … that Dorothy Jean inspires more students. … But this is still something so rare and unique.— Leslie Manson, an Arizona State assistant professor, talking about Dorothy Jean Tillman II, a 17-year-old who just earned a doctorate in behavioral health. (Tuesday, ABC News)

“I was the only person I knew who wrote stories, though I didn’t tell them to anybody, and as far as I knew, at least for a while, I was the only person who could do this in the world.— Canadian writer Alice Munro, in an interview after winning the Nobel Prize in literature in 2013. She died last week. (Tuesday, NPR)

To live and work in Dallas is to love Dallas. … This is the right place to complete my service.” — Police Chief Eddie García, after the city announced that an agreement had been reached to keep him until 2027. (Thursday, The Dallas Morning News)

Advertisement

“People need to know that, you know, who they’re talking to on Instacart is not necessarily who’s going to show up at your house.” – “Law & Order” actor Angie Harmon who is suing Instacart after the delivery person allegedly shot her dog at her North Carolina home. (Thursday, The Dallas Morning News)

“The baby itself becomes a rounding error. It took us a while to wrap our heads around that.” — Dustin Marshall, an evolutionary biologist at Monash University, who discovered, along with his students, that the energy stored in a human baby’s tissues accounts for only about 4% of the total energy costs of pregnancy. The other 96% is extra fuel required by a woman’s own body. (Thursday, The New York Times)

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Dallas, TX

2 women killed, 1 man injured in shooting at Old East Dallas apartment

Published

on

2 women killed, 1 man injured in shooting at Old East Dallas apartment


Dallas police are investigating after two women were killed, and a man was shot at an apartment complex early Saturday morning.

Police responded to the shooting at the Broadstone Paragon on Washington and Lemon Avenues in Old East Dallas at about 3 a.m.

Advertisement

Responding officers found all three victims with gunshot wounds.

Both women were pronounced dead. The male victim was taken to the hospital where police say he is now stable.

The names of the victims have not been released at this time.

Advertisement

DPD has not announced any arrests.

The investigation into the shooting is ongoing.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Dallas, TX

‘We have a lot of rain in Dallas’ and other overflowing quotes of the week

Published

on

‘We have a lot of rain in Dallas’ and other overflowing quotes of the week


“I definitely missed being here. I missed this building. I missed Cowboys’ nation. I’m definitely excited and ready to get this thing going.” — Ezekiel Elliot, after announcing his return to the Cowboys for the 2024 season. (Tuesday, Cowboys.com)

“We refused to let death take us.” — Grace Kang, a North Korean refugee speaking to an SMU crowd about her ordeal leaving the country under a totalitarian regime. (Tuesday, The Dallas Morning News)

“Long before ‘Brooklyn’ became a place where every novelist seemed to live, from Colson Whitehead to Jhumpa Lahiri … Auster made being a writer seem like something real, something a person actually did.” — Poet Meghan O’Rourke, commenting on Paul Auster, the Brooklyn-based writer of “The New York Trilogy,” who died last week. (Wednesday, The New York Times)

“If we have a lot of rain here and we have a lot of rain in Dallas, well then the magnitude of the flooding is going to be much worse.” — Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy commenting on the heavy rainfall in East Texas that caused the Trinity River to overflow. (Wednesday, Texas Tribune)

Advertisement

Business Briefing

Become a business insider with the latest news.

“As far as financial institutions, I don’t necessarily think it’s going to have a demonstrable effect.” — Morgan Fox, political director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, commenting on the Biden administration’s decision to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug
but still keeping cannabis businesses out of the banking system. (Tuesday, The
Associated Press)

“These numbers validate our concern that much of the disruption on campus over the past week has been orchestrated by people from outside the University, including groups with ties to escalating protests at other universities around the country.” — A statement by the University of Texas at Austin confirming that half of those arrested in pro-Palestinian protests had no affiliation with the university. (Tuesday, The Dallas Morning News)

“This is the first time that we have observed a wild animal applying a quite potent medicinal plant directly to a wound.” — Isabelle Laumer, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany, and co-author of a study on an orangutan that applied a medicinal plant to treat a facial wound. (Thursday, Associated Press)

Advertisement

“Why is China stalling so bad economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Because they’re xenophobic. … They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what makes us strong.” — President Joe Biden (Wednesday, CNN)

Hate speech, derogatory language and offensive behavior is not tolerated at Dallas ISD. Our schools are safe havens where we welcome inclusivity and celebrate all cultures, ethnicities and religions.” — DISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde, after announcing that Hillcrest High School will be partnering with the Holocaust Museum for antisemitism training. (Thursday, The Dallas Morning News)

“There were streams of bees, and the wall … was oozing honey. But it looked like blood because it was really, really dark, running down my daughter’s pink walls. It looked really strange.” — Ashley Massis Class, referring to the massive bee hive found in her daughter’s closet in North Carolina. The toddler thought it was a monster. (Wednesday, The Guardian)

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending