Chauncey Billups on Guarding Luka Doncic: 'Toughest Cover In The NBA'
It's never easy to attempt to contain the NBA's top players. After three consecutive All-NBA First-Team nominations, it's apparent that Luka Doncic makes the Dallas Mavericks one of the teams on the schedule during the NBA season requiring some extra game planning attention.
The Portland Trail Blazers became the latest team to experience the difficulties of trying to contain Doncic firsthand in their 117-112 loss to the Mavs on Sunday. Doncic finished with a 42-point triple-double with his playmaking being key down the stretch, leading to a barrage of clutch-time 3-pointers.
Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups described Doncic after the game as being the most challenging player to cover in the NBA. With Doncic having as versatile of a scoring arsenal as they come with increased usage of post-ups, Billups described Doncic as essentially posing the challenges of a perimeter scorer and a big man all in one.
“He’s the toughest cover,” Billups said of Doncic. “He’s the toughest cover in the league. You can prepare for scorers, prepare for bigs. He’s all of those things in one.”
Billups admitted that when you have a matchup against a talent like Doncic, he's one of those players that makes you stay up late the night before as you try to find solutions to guard him. With the way he controls the shot clock, it's challenging to execute pressuring him without it getting exploited.
“He’s a tough prep and he keeps you up at night with some of the things he does out there,” Billups said. “But his usage, you know he’s going to have the ball the whole time — the whole shot clock pretty much.
“So yeah, he’s definitely a tough cover.”
Not only does Doncic pose a lot of challenges for a defense with his scoring ability, his size at 6-foot-7 enables him to see over double-teams. The rare patience and ability to control the possession enables him to pick apart the backend of a defense after drawing two — requiring a combination of different defensive coverages during a game.
“He’s just dynamic, man,” Billups said. “He’s a matchup nightmare (and) tough to prepare for. He doesn’t just score. He’s so smart. He’s so big, he sees over the double team.
“He’s one of those guys that you got to mix stuff up on him, figures you out pretty quick, but you’re just not going to stop a guy like that.”
Even when an attempt is made to mix up defensive coverages, Billups views Doncic as one of those rare talents that's simply going to find a way to break the strategies the opposition deploys against him. For example, Portland tried to utilize a zone at times and he ripped it to shreds. As a result, the strategy that Billups sees is to try to make others beat you.
“You can try to wear him down, try and change things up on him,” Billups said. “You’re not going to stop him. He’s one of those type of dudes. You’ve got to worry about not letting anybody else beat you though.”
With how strong of a start to the season Doncic has established for himself, the concern went from whether he will be in shape to start a season, to whether he can hold up throughout an 82-game stretch with how significant of a workload he manages. In the meantime, the Mavs will surely be working on solutions to address that concern at some point.
Want the latest in breaking news and insider information on the Mavericks? Click Here.
