SAN ANTONIO — Two days before Luka Doncic and the Mavericks arrived at AT&T Center on Saturday, coach Gregg Popovich revealed his team’s defensive plan against Dallas’ super-scoring superstar.
“50 [points] is going to be our goal,” Popovich declared with his patented wry humor, slamming his hand on the table in front of him. “We’re holding Luka under 50. Quote.”
Oh, how Doncic loves to play spoiler.
In the Mavericks’ 126-125 win, Doncic tallied 51 points, nine assists, six rebounds, four steals and one block in 37 minutes to power the Mavericks’ sixth consecutive victory, tying their longest streak under coach Jason Kidd and the franchise’s best since the 2011 championship season.
Doncic made steal in the final minute, game-saving transition defense in the last 10 seconds and crucial rebound after Davis Bertans committed a foul, but the Spurs missed the potential tying free throw with 2.7 seconds remaining, ensuring his latest scoring masterpiece ended with a fist pump and smile.
In Dallas’ last five games, Doncic has hit the 50-point scoring mark three times, posted a career-high 60-points in the most improbable of comeback wins and and left all who’ve witnessed the most prolific scoring stretch of his young career marveling at how far he progressed in the 2022 calendar year.
“It’s unbelievable, this guy,” Popovich said. “He’s just a beautiful basketball player. He’s like the prototype for high basketball IQ and high skill level, all rolled into one guy. He’s very special, very special.”
At this point last season, Doncic watched from his house in Dallas as the COVID-ravaged Mavericks managed a win in Sacramento despite their Slovenian superstar missing a 10th consecutive game for left ankle soreness, a positive COVID-19 test and reconditioning after starting the first two months of the season out of shape.
No doubt he enjoyed tormenting the 12-win Spurs, prompting “M-V-P!” chants from a road crowd in the second half, much more.
Even if he needed to unleash a 50-point game for the second time in the last five to will the Mavericks through clutch time to beat a bottom-two team in the Western Conference.
As the Mavericks struggled to cushion their advantage early and then to stave off the Spurs, who twice cut Dallas’ lead to one point in the last minute, their best defense often became Doncic’s offensive control.
Doncic tallied 22 points in the first quarter, reached 30 by halftime and hit 40 with a few minutes remaining in the third quarter. He sealed his franchise-record fourth 50-point game at the foul line with 4.5 seconds remaining.
If Popovich emphasized at halftime his team’s need to slow Doncic’s scoring, the 23-year-old emerged from the locker room ready with a counter: 12 straight minutes of passes all around the court.
Doncic dished seven assists to five teammates in the third quarter, including three to Christian Wood. Doncic and Wood each tallied 12 points in the frame, boosting Doncic to his eighth 40-point game of the season and buoying Wood’s 25 total points in support.
Before this season, Doncic had never recorded more than seven 40-point games in a full season, playoffs included. Last season, Doncic reached 40 points six times — over 80 total games — and not before Jan. 19.
What a way to cap a calendar year in which he transformed from suboptimal conditioning to perhaps the most singularly dominant player in the NBA, carrying the Mavericks and fans through some of the franchise’s most thrilling moments in a decade:
Since Doncic returned from that ankle-COVID-conditioning absence last Jan. 2, he averaged 31.7 points, 9.33 rebounds and 8.47 assists and 16 triple-doubles in 93 total games, including 15 in the playoffs, during the 2022 calendar year.
Some of his many highlights included:
— Hitting 51 points Feb. 10 against the playoff nemesis Clippers a few hours after the Mavericks traded co-star Kristaps Porzingis to Washington.
— Dishing game-winning assists to Spencer Dinwiddie in consecutive mid-March outings against the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets.
— Dismantling the Utah Jazz’s playoff-experienced core after recovering from a left calf strain in three games to seal the Mavericks’ first postseason series win since the 2011 championship.
— Dismantling the top-seeded Phoenix Suns’ repeat Finals hopes with epic Game 6 and 7 beatdowns to advance to his first Western Conference finals.
— Dazzling during Slovenia’s offseason run at EuroBasket, where not even a gash on his head that required stitches at halftime against Olympic rival France kept him from more international history.
— Tying Dirk Nowitzki for the franchise’s most 50-point games Dec. 23 in Houston and breaking it four days later, while sandwiching a front-row view of Nowitzki’s statue unveiling and a Christmas victory over LeBron James in between.
— And then, of course, the most improbable of intentionally missed free throw put-backs and comeback victories while logging the NBA’s first 60-point, 21-rebound, 10-assist stat line Dec. 27 against the Knicks and former running mate Jalen Brunson.
With a legitimate 2023 MVP race upcoming, Kidd anticipates Doncic’s rise is far from complete.
“If you can say at [age] 23 this is where he’s at,” Kidd said, “then 24 and 25 he will be even better.”
