Luka Doncic cannot always be "superhuman", Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd insists, after the preseason MVP favourite continued a mixed start to the campaign with an "average" night against the Chicago Bulls.
Mavericks superstar Doncic, now in his fourth year in the NBA, was expecting to be among the league's leading players in 2021-22.
Dallas are a competitive 7-4 through 11 games and their point forward has 24.5 points per game, but that is a considerable drop on last year's 27.7 or his 2019-20 peak of 28.8.
And Doncic, despite a sensational game-winning buzzer-beater against the Boston Celtics last week, is not helping the Mavs in the way his team would hope.
Only eight qualifying players – seven of them on teams with .250 records or worse – have a lower plus/minus per game than Doncic's -8.7.
That was -20 in Wednesday's 117-107 defeat to the Bulls despite the 22-year-old averaging close to his first triple-double of the season with 20 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds.
Doncic had four steals for only the sixth time in his career but also gave up four turnovers and is averaging 4.4 for the year, a new high.
"Luka was just average tonight," Kidd said. "We always expect him to be superhuman, but there's going to be nights in this season where he's going to be average.
"His average is really good, but he again had some great looks that didn't go down for him."
Indeed, Doncic made just six of 18 shots from the field and one of six from three-point range.
Although he is attempting more field goals than ever before (21.2 per game), his shooting is down to 43.3 per cent, including a career-low 28.6 per cent from three.
Kidd praised much-maligned team-mate Kristaps Porzingis, who "stepped up" with 22 points and 12 rebounds, but the Mavs clearly cannot afford a player, in Doncic, with a team-high 35.9 per cent usage rate to be missing both shots and passes.
"I think that's a question for him," Kidd said of Doncic's shooting woes. "When you look at the shots that he's taking, he's getting a lot of great looks.
"I think in the game of basketball, some go in, some don't. He still has to continue to be aggressive and take those looks. The ones that he's missing right now will fall for him – he just has to stay with it."
One tweak could be to get Doncic closer to the basket, with his shooting at the rim way up to 75.6 per cent. He has scored 40.1 per cent of his points in the paint this year (only marginally up on 40.0 per cent).
"His strength is being able to create on the perimeter for others and for himself, so that's something that we can definitely do, put him in the post to try to take some of the stress away from him having to work so hard," Kidd said. "That will come in due time as the season goes on."
NBA: Doncic has triple-double in 1st half in Mavericks' rout
Luka Dončić notched a triple-double by halftime and finished with 40 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in three quarters in the Dallas Mavericks’ 147-97 rout of the Utah Jazz on Wednesday.
Doncic grabbed a rebound with 71 seconds left in the first half and assisted on Dereck Lively II’s dunk 12 seconds later to complete the 60th triple-double of his career. That moved him past Larry Bird into sole possession of ninth on the career list.
The Dallas superstar had the first 25-point first-half triple-double in NBA history. Doncic shot 14 of 25 from the field and was 6 of 12 from long range.
Kyrie Irving added 26 points for Dallas, which had its highest-scoring game of this season and came up two points shy of the highest-scoring game ever in regulation.
Ochai Agbaji scored 21 points for the Jazz, who played without top scorers Lauri Markkanen (hamstring) and Jordan Clarkson (thigh).
Grizzlies’ Bane goes off as Pistons lose again
Desmond Bane poured in 32 of his career-high 49 points in the second half and the Memphis Grizzlies sent the Detroit Pistons to their 18th straight loss, 116-102.
Detroit’s streak is the longest single-season run in franchise history and the longest in the NBA since the Houston Rockets’ 20-game slide in 2020-21. The Philadelphia 76ers hold the NBA record with a 26-game drought in 2013-14.
Bane shot 19 of 31 from the field and 4-of-8 from 3-point range while sinking all seven free-throw attempts. He added eight assists and six rebounds.
The Pistons held a 69-61 lead midway through the third quarter, but Bane scored the next seven points.
Bojan Bogdanovic scored 22 points for Detroit, which was outscored 34-18 in the fourth quarter.
Embiid drops 50 in 76ers’ win
Joel Embiid scored a season-high 50 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead the Philadelphia 76ers to a 131-126 victory over the Washington Wizards.
Embiid hit the 50-point mark for the sixth time in his career, falling nine points short of his career best set on Nov. 13, 2022, against Utah.
He was 19 of 24 from the floor with a 3-pointer on two attempts and 11 of 13 from the foul line. He also had seven assists and six turnovers in just over 38 minutes.
Tyrese Maxey added 26 points as the 76ers averted a third straight loss.
Durant refuses to pin Suns defeat to Lakers on controversial timeout
Kevin Durant did not look to use a contentious timeout call as an excuse after the Phoenix Suns slipped to a 106-103 defeat to the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Suns were left furious after the referee elected to call a timeout following LeBron James' call, when the ball appeared to be loose, late in the fourth quarter of Tuesday's in-season tournament quarter-final.
With 15 seconds remaining, Davin Booker dispossessed Austin Reaves, with James swiftly requesting a timeout, which was granted.
Suns coach Frank Vogel fumed: "It's a loose ball, and you can't call a timeout on a loose ball.
"The whistle blows. I don't know why. Everything in the league is reviewable. I don't know why that can't be reviewable.
"We've got the trap, we've got the turnover, [and the] damn whistle blows. It's just frustrating."
Durant, though, did not share his coach's anger.
"That's not the ballgame," said Durant, who led the Suns with 31 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
"That's one play. It's a 48-minute game. I don't like to complain about calls.
"Sometimes the ref isn't going to get it right all the time. Sometimes it's on us to play through all that stuff and not worry about putting the game in the ref's hands."
Reaves added: "There was no call, and LeBron made a high-IQ play he's made a million times.
Vogel did, however, echo Durant's sentiment that the Suns did not do enough to win the tie and progress to Las Vegas.
"We didn't do enough early in the game," Vogel said. "The turnovers and on the glass, if we do a better job, we're not talking about a close game like that."
The Lakers will now face the New Orleans Pelicans for a place in the final of the inaugural in-season tournament, with the winner taking home the NBA Cup.
"You've got some of the most alpha male competitors in the world, and if you give us an opportunity to play for something meaningful or an incentive, then you get what you're getting," said James, who finished with 31 points and 11 assists.
"The in-season tournament is what it is, and we have an opportunity to play on a big stage, be on national television, represent our families, our communities, where we come from."
Bucks hint at offensive dominance in Knicks rout
The Milwaukee Bucks will not always hit the height of their potential, but Damian Lillard suggested Tuesday's big win over the New York Knicks can be a sign of what is to come.
The Bucks ran out 146-122 winners over the Knicks in their NBA in-season tournament quarter-final.
Giannis Antetokounmpo had 35 points and 10 rebounds, while Lillard contributed 28 points, as the Bucks, who are second in the Eastern Conference, teed up a semi-final against the Indiana Pacers in Las Vegas.
Lillard warned it was too much to expect the Bucks to perform like that in every game, but he said the team have laid down a marker.
"I thought this was probably our best offensive game," said Lillard.
"That doesn't mean we're going to turn into a team that does that every night, but I do think we have that type of explosiveness.
"We can't depend on having these types of nights every time, but it's definitely a look at the kind of nights we can have offensively.
"It's been some bumps in that process where we don't play so great some nights but we're still able to win those games.
"I think now is just starting to get a little smoother, knowing where we should be on the floor, knowing how to give each other outlets, knowing how to help each other be who we are.
"It's not perfect, but I just like that we're showing improvement and it's carrying over and you can see it on the floor."
Lillard added that winning the in-season tournament would be a statement of intent.
"You come out of this thing on top, the last team standing, I think it's a pretty strong statement," he said. "It's something that everybody around the league has to respect."
"Tonight was a huge step. We wanted to get to Vegas," Bucks coach Adrian Griffin said.
"But when we get to Vegas, we've got to take care of business. We still got two games to win there."
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