On This Day In NBA History: August 19 - No Luka, No Problem For Dallas
Superstar talents are what define championship teams in the NBA and come time for the postseason, the All-Stars in this league always tend to elevate their play.
In the 2020 NBA Bubble, this was certainly the case, as every single player had to elevate their play given the circumstances of playing without fans and in a bubble environment.
One of the intriguing first-round series we got to see in the 2020 NBA Playoffs featured Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and the Los Angeles Clippers taking on Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks. The Clippers ultimately won this series in six games, but they dropped Game 2 of this series in surprising fashion.
On this day in 2020, the Mavericks defeated the Clippers 127-114 despite first-time All-Star Luka Doncic only playing nine total minutes in the second-half due to foul trouble.
Picking up his fourth foul less than a minute into the third quarter and then his fifth foul just a minute into the final period of play, Doncic spent a vast majority of the second-half of this game on the bench.
Dallas ended up being very effective in this one without Doncic, as they outscored the Clippers 14-4 with him on the bench to end the third quarter and then they continued to have the hot hand offensively with Luka cheering them on, as the Mavericks extended their lead to 18 points in the final 12 minutes of play.
He may have still finished the game with 28 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists in just 28 minutes of play, but the story in this game was the secondary talents for the Dallas Mavericks, specifically those on their bench in Seth Curry, Trey Burke and Boban Marjanovic. These three combined to score 44 points for the game and 25 total points in the second-half alone.
Averaging a total of 30.5 points, 10.0 rebounds and 9.2 assists in 13 games in the 2020 NBA Bubble, Luka Doncic really emerged as the superstar talent we view him as today.
Although his services were not necessarily needed in the second-half of this game in 2020, the Mavericks rely heavily on Luka Doncic today and they will need him to be an MVP caliber player during the 2022-23 season if they are to take the next step as a franchise and emerge as a real title contender in the Western Conference.
