[Highlight] Luka Doncic unsuccessfully foul baiting against the OKC Thunder
You can see how disciplined OKCs defenders are. Their hands are on point.
and they are not jumping. Okc is really good.
When you rewatch the clip and focus on them instead of Luka you really do see it. They aren’t even close to fouling.
But the narrative I keep hearing is that their defenders get away with everything, not that they actually play disciplined defense.
Why are to things being true at the same time impossible. OKC play great defence but get away with physicality other teams don’t.
Oh they do get away with absolutely everything lmao, it’s just that the reason they get away with shit like that is that they set a precedent for elite defensive play elsewhere. Once you’ve got the reputation established, you can pull a ton of shit before the refs will start calling you.
Also, as elite defenders they’ve got anti-baiting techniques down pat. Not hard to tell when a player is trying to get cheeky and locking them down with safer movements.
Draymond Green gets away with absolutely everything
OKC gets away with some shit
Always a nuggets flair
What training against a flopper will do to a mf
They are very physical before the drive but while a player is going downhill they stay pat and keep their hands to themselves.
Missing a shot trying to do this FOUR times in one game alone is absolutely wild
And people act like Luka isn’t on the Shai/Jimmy tier in terms of looking for fouls
Luka is a prime Harden level foul baiter. Averaging almost 12 attempts a game this year.
I feel like people have short memories. I think SGA gets too much flack in comparison to Luka, but Harden? He just threw up his arms and bulldozed into defenders without trying to put the ball in the hoop, flailing his arms and throwing the ball away once he felt contact. At least SGA and Luka are trying to score every time.
Harden hooked way more defenders arms as well, which was his bread and butter, and jumped into people. They made rule changes because of him. There has never existed a bigger foul baiter than Harden, and it’s not close. With that said, I don’t fault anyone for using every single tool at their disposal, and I like Harden. But when it comes to foul baiting, he’s #1, with a big gap down to the rest.
Shades of Hart guarding Harden / doing the defensive slide drill in these OKC defensive highlights
Not gonna last tbh. Same with how he’s averaging 37
He averaged 34/9/9 in 2023-2024 for a season looool.
No he didn’t? His 23-24 season averages were 17/8/5
No idea if you’re a troll or just living under a rock.
http://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=luka+dončić+average+2023-2024
He averaged 34/9/9 for a whole season whilst playing 70+ games.
He’s way way way worse than Shai
He baits a lot but he also doesn’t get blatant calls it’s really weird
Luka gets away with it because he makes them at a lower clip than Shai or Jimmy do
The last one is hilarious. Trying to draw a foul on a guy who is not moving a muscle in his body
So it begins
The focus is going to shift to Jokic instead of Luka soon
Sort by new first 4 posts are about Jokic. Which he should rightly get some shine because he’s the best player in the world, but the glaze is about to be THICK!
As it should. I really do love mavs Luka but lakers Luka isn’t it for me. Jokic is whole another beat anyways
Mavs Luka wasn’t it either….
Then again I’m all for the PJ washington erasure. He’s pretty mid too o
Nico finally fired and now we can actually hate without glaze
I’m dying on the hill that this okc team is the best defensive team top to bottom. Especially with the high paced perimeter orientated offense of the modern day nba.
Lol what imaginary battle are you fighting
The Thunder were first in defense last year by a wide margin and by even more this year
Maybe they meant all time
All time? Spurs
That’s just beautiful defense
A wolves fan complimenting the thunder. Now I have seen it all.
I was going to say “hate to say it, but…” But I also really dislike Luka, so I’d rather give props to OKC who’s punishing Luka for foul baiting
He wasn’t even really complaining, that was just super disciplined defense, good contrast to the hacking we see the non-caruso players commit
He got a tech for complaining 😂
I swear Lu Dort is allowed to play football out there.
complaining about someone that’s not even playing is sad
I love the Thunder but Dort is at the Pat Bev point where we all saw that he is a truly elite defender and now he’s allowed to get away with way more contact than a lot of guys. It’s not just a Dort thing. I just have always found it odd that once a player gets the reputation of elite defender they can get away with way more.
Pat bev has never for one minute been an elite defender
every team needs their draymond
Lu is very physicals but once a player starts a drive he isn’t reaching or jumping at everything. He guards with his chest not his hands.
You can play as physical as you want as long as you don’t force the refs to blow the whistle.
they dont see this part of lu dorts game , people wanted physical defense back then bitch when its back
I think a lot of it is that when you guard someone who’s bigger than you then the refs will swallow the whistle a bit. Dort is frequently on great players who are often bigger than he is so the physicality is a natural consequence.
That is obviously a part of it but that also leans into the guarding with the chest bit, Lu is going to stay in front of his man with his chest so the refs are going to be more lenient with what he does with his hands.
SGA has passed Luka all time. Luka fans still unable to accept it
He passed him last season no doubt.
What is this even based on? Why is SGA better because he has by far the better team?
I think it’s the whole MVP, scoring champ, finals MVP. Absurd people would take that as a sign that Shai’s surpassed Luka. Crazy amirite
Ring, FMVP and MVP.
Both have scoring titles.
Luka has 2 more All NBAs I believe.
Yes. SGA has a better team but he is also the bus driver of that team. If both of their careers end right now, objectively, SGA is ahead of Luka.
They still crying bout Luka Shoukdvd won mvp two years ago n somehow he’s still better when shai ckears him now
Shai is not better than Jokic, Giannis or Luka just because he is on a better team, or because he won the H2H today. Luka was averaging 40 up to now, Giannis is the best two-way in the league and Jokic is Jokic. Shai is the 4th best player and its not particularly close.
What do Jokic, Giannis, and Shai all have in common that Luka doesn’t have? I don’t even need to give you a hint since it’s pretty obvious 😉
Luka carried a Mavs team to the finals just two seasons ago while putting up Micheal Jordan numbers in playoffs. You give him OKC’s team and he is winning the chip too. You can argue Luka may not be better than peak SGA’s monster season from his title run but that’s an outlier and not repeatable. He is overall better than SGA and this season will prove it, i stand on that.
As for MVP, he was putting up MVP-Calibre numbers multiple seasons but team record matters a lot. Which is why SGA got his over Jokic. So its impossible to win MVP when he was stuck with a damn near poverty franchise in the Mavs and the moment their championship window opened, he got traded to the Lakers who now have to rebuild around him. Give this take a few years to age and you’ll look back wondering how you guys ever compared SGA to Luka.
Mr. Don’t Watch, over here lol
It means nothing if you can’t consistently score against elite defenses. Jokic, Giannis, and SGA all have two things in common - a ring and a MVP
SGA had more mvp votes than luka when OKC was a playin team. This isnt a 2025 discussion, SGA has been doing this since 2022
Those guys plays against Shai everyday, lol. They know all the tricks
After listening to Cason in the Young Man and the Three podcast, I was surprised that he didn’t hesitate to say that Shai is flopping as well during practice lol
maybe Nico was right, holy moly
I know this is a joke, but the issue people had was the return they got for Luka, the concerns about Luka were valid concerns since he consistently showed up overweight and not in shape or didn’t care about defense that much.
Bro is legitimately 5x worse than Shai and has the audacity to whine and cry to the refs about it on top of the baiting
5x worse is crazy
Even as an okc fan you gotta admit that time Shai flopped so hard he went cross eyed was hilarious.
As a player they’re both in the equal level, Shai just have a roster that goes 11-deep.
The last one just looked silly. Nearly collapsed to the floor on contact he initiated.
They play with Shai in practice a lot, so they mastered it
Mmmm pork chops smothered in gravy. Lukas the pork chop ofc
This is so embarrassing. As a Rockets fan I’m so happy and proud that we’ve never had a foul-baiting flopper like this on our squad.
okc defense is so damn good. i miss you caruso.
OKC is him
Chill on Luka, dawg.
Luka is going to make a phenomenal actor after his basketball career is over.
Nah the got Reaves and Luka locked up
Baiter vs Master Baiter
Thank you for posting this, bro was literally foul baiting in half his drive it was a bad watch. Made sga look ethical 😂😂
I wish my Kings got away with everything OKC do. Not so much in this clip but I watched the first half (only thing on ESPN) and it’s wild how much OKC can do that Sacramento got butchered for against Nugs last night
The difference between the kings and okc isn’t the whistle. Kings have an HORRENDOUS defense and barely any of the players give a shit. They are super undisciplined, the effort isnt there 2⁄3 of the time and commit dumb mistakes after dumb mistakes.
Guess he thought was gonna get the insane whistle he and Reeves got against us the other night . Only reason they won
Dude you had more free throws than them 22 for the Hornets vs 20 for the Lakers
lol insane whstle when you guys got way more favorite call until 4th quarter trying to hack and get back in the game
only shai’s allowed do that unfortunately
Step 1 - Watch a video of luka foulbating
Step 2 - Deflect and point the finger at someone else
Step 3 - Profit??
Doesn’t work when the refs like the opponent as much as the Lakers
At least SGA makes the and-1 attempt when he tries to bait fouls like this
Missing it entirely just makes you look silly
Did you see the second quarter?
You think people here actually watch games?
They jerk off to European stat lines and go to bed. These dudes dont watch the games.
There’s a league mandate to let the Thunder get away with murder. They’re trying to ride the Shai train into bank station. Why would they want to hitch their wagon to a Euro? Canadian is almost as good as American when it comes to selling jerseys.
Nuggets fan 😂😂😂
Move the fuck on. You’ll have another chance in a few years when Denver trades Jokic and rebuilds.
Sorry, but your misinformation campaign is losing ground to reality.
Absolutely brain dead take
Lmao there is zero chance small market OKC is the NBAs preferred choice of team to push.
Shai gets those calls
Luka averages 5 more free throws than Shai a game.
Shai would’ve got that call
Wahhhh
What’s wrong?
What call? The video has 4 plays. You clearly didnt even see it, yet feel the need to comment. 10⁄10 hating
How did he manage to forget that Thunder do not get fouls called against them? Who in their right mind would try to foul bait the team that gets to play football and still not get fouls called against them. They had two guys hanging off of Jokic last playoffs with no consequence. Like that’s literally the reason no one likes the Thunder, how do you forget that part.
Luka literally plays for the refs’ favorite team that’s top 5 in FT differential every single season
In fact his free throws have seen a noticeable uptick specifically since he’s become a Laker it would be one thing if he was still on the Mavs but the Lakers are never the victim
Cool? What’s that got to do with my point.
My whole point it it’s stupid for Luka to do this against this specific team. Thunder don’t get actual fouls called against them, in what universe would they get phantom foul calls against them.
Both teams had 19 fouls this game and Lakers took 28 FTs, Thunder 23. Anything else?
Look at the ft disparity thunder shoot almost the least amount while giving up alot of ft. You dont watch the games man
this talking point is getting so tired man
What a fucking loser you are