[Highlight] Luka Doncic defensive highlights vs. the Detroit Pistons
Mind you you can put lowlights in the title
These are highlights by Luka’s standards
Did you see that one where he looked like he was maybe possibly starting to think about somewhat moving his feet? Watch out everyone.
That one where he tried swatting at it is a badass luka defensive highlight.
LOL
These are absolutely highlights to me
It’s funnier this way
My first thought was “oh so we’re just mislabeling posts for fun now”
OP trying to bait, I respect the game (not really, but still)
This looks more like a Lakers defensive lowlight reel than just a Luka defensive lowlight reel.
Don’t know why everyone is all of sudden making this into a big deal.
This is who Luka is for the past 3 years.
This is whiplash from the lakers PR campaign from this summer.
Newton’s third law.
I made a comment about their PR team working overtime during the fitness magazine posts on this sub. Got lots of snide comments. I kept telling them to just wait. 😎
Yeah, the thing that makes the Luka trade crazier is Nico went out and did the work to further improve the team around who he is and still threw it away, now the Lakers have to do it.
I understand Nico’s reasoning but still a bad trade.
Luka was the franchise player and he wasn’t leading by example with his fitness and defense.
Lakers gonna complain some more when Lebron is gone and Luka becomes the face of the franchise while still doing this.
Wanting to trade Luka itself is fine, but trading him without making him available to everyone to get the best possible haul was dumb.
They made the finals the year before. It’s not fine. It’s dumb af irregardless.
Lakers can hide 1 bad player on defence. With LeOld and Austin on the floor, they have 3-4 pylons on at the same time.
A back court of AR and Luka will never win anything
People acted like the Celtics championship didn’t count because they won it so easily.
They weren’t watching the Mavs
Now Lakers fans actually watching him
People have been bitching about this forever. They never get tired of
Lakers PR trying to covertly shame him into playing hard
Easy karma these days. Also the second one isn’t even on Luka.
Exactly!
Mavs fans did a better PR job, also just because he’s been doing forever it shouldn’t excuse him when he’s up in MVP talks
Everyone loves hating on Luka, but they would pee their pants in excitement if their favorite team got him.
It’s like he can’t physically closeout
All that mass makes it hard to shift the momentum.
All those videos of him being in such great physical shape this past summer😮💨😮💨😂😂
On par with Simmons shooting threes
Those California’s taco make him lose his fitness goals.
Fat pig vs inertia
Nico is laughing his ass off somewhere right now
What he got in return in combination with Anthony Davis injuries unfortunately for him makes redemption impossible.
Nah, Luka would have to lay face-down on the court and stop moving any time the other team had the ball for that trade to age well for Nico.
If he’s laughing it’s because he’s dumb. He had a team built around him: with Luka you need good defense and shooters and it’s fine. The Lakers are one of the worst constructed rosters in the league, with part of it being pure chance (stumbling on Luka Doncic) and conflicting timelines. It’s been the case since 2021, and there’s no comparing this to the Mavs
He’s expending way too much energy firing all those step back threes.
He’s out he making business decisions like he’s playing cornerback against Bo Jackson.
at least fat luka would take up a little more space on the court just standing around
You heard of offensive gravity?
Yo’ Luka’s so fat he’s got defensive gravity!
This might beat some of the all-time yo mama jokes
Why I was sad to see him slim down. He should’ve become obese. Plant him in the paint. What is the other team going to do? They’d just bounce off his belly. He’d make Wemby look like a scrub
Almost exactly 3 years after a video with the same title here in 2022 and the same result
Will Luka’s 2026 New Year’s resolution be to play defense?
Mods will probably remove this post like the lu dort one
Obligatory Fuck Lu Dort.
I got heavy Canadian bias and even I gotta admit Dort is sus
Back in the day, he made a resolution to not complain too much to the refs. Look how that turned out.
Well, someone told him on his birthday to never change who he is. Counter spell is strong.
Hey he was actually jumping and getting an arm up to contest most of those shots, unlike the 2025 version.
I feel like there was more effort three years ago. Nowadays he just seems lost and doesn’t close out
Were the mods on Lakers PR payroll back then?
Lakers have been too cheap even to afford pro personnel scouts under Jeannie Buss and you think they’ve been spending real US dollars on REDDIT MODS?
He was playing for the Mavs then
These things rarely improve as you get older.
Lol this lowlight is 1000x better than the one from this past game. This past game Luka literally isn’t moving hit feet isn’t even jumping to contest it’s disgusting.
If it was the video above then at least we could say hey he tried his best it’s just not who he is but he’s literally not even fucking trying and it’s contagious
am i blind? i feel like almost half of these would happen regardless who you replace with luka? like yeah he’s not a good defender but in a 2-on-1 fast break, the offense is SUPPOSED to score. who is stopping cade on an island when he also has a teammate under the rim waiting for it?
again. luka is not a good defender, but this compilation is kinda mid
Yeah I was about to say the same thing, like the effort in some of these is horrendous but a lot of these are hard to stop fast breaks.
The title should be Lakers defensive lowlights but OP wants that sweet karma. There’s a few bad Luka possessions but most of these just show how horrible the team defense is.
100% a lot of these are because his teammates also suck on defense. His teammate gets beat baseline, he comes over to help and its his fault his man is open now? Dont get beat baseline is like rule number 1 of defense
2nd one was his fault for the horrid turnover but the defense was his teammates fault as he played it right in defending the corner while his team also went to defend the perimeter as well.
Exactly, a bunch of these were bad team defense
It’s the definition of losing the benefit of the doubt, half these clips aren’t really bad, but since there are some bad clips people will chalk this up to lack of effort.
Not a huge Luka fan but it’s a lil unfair rn
It’s Luka hating day, you get free karma depending on how hateposts you can make
And this weekend he’ll drop 45/16/8 and there will be 10 threads about how he’s better than SGA. It’s just the way it goes on this subreddit
People didn’t watch the video and assumed lol
I’m not six feet tall and I can shoot over Luka because dude never has his arms up or jumps high enough to slip a piece of paper under him. He closes dudes out in like 3-5 business days.
I agree with you that there were many instances in this video that would happen to anyone but some of them make me kind of depressed that he seems to not even try.
It’s a lot of smart/laravia ball watching/getting blown by, vando being bodied, ayton losing Duren, and LeBron being lazy.
These clowns didn’t watch the game (of course). Luka’s defense is NOT why we lost, nor was he the worst defender on the Lakers. You could also do this for 90 percent of the “superstars” in this league, it’s just trendy to do it for Luka
Basketball is about percentages. Obviously, making essentially no effort to contest shots or even create some traffic in front of the hoop is going to result in better outcomes for the attacking team.
There’s also something to be said for leading by example. He doesn’t have to be sprinting around and diving to the floor on defense, but he should at least be seen to be more of a presence on than I would be. He moves like he’s 70 in a lot of these clips.
like you said percentages. there is a really good argument to make that the primary scorer and team leader should not over exert himself on an almost guaranteed losing play
again, im not trying to argue he’s actually a good defender, just these clips don’t rly show it
I don’t disagree with you; I just think he could put in a bit more effort, or at least the appearance of effort. Maybe he can take some acting lessons. It can’t be good for morale to have him just standing around looking like he’s waiting for the bus.
I think a good defender can stop maybe one or two of these but yeah, you can make a lowlight compilation like this for just about any player if this is the standard
Lowlights man, lowlights.
It looks more like Lakers defensive lowlights than simply Luka defensive lowlights.
Yeah pretty much. Pistons showed up for layup practice. But nba mods gotta be a bit better about this. Like I like the funny “ x player hits a three to cut the lead to 20” posts but confusing highlights with lowlights is where I’ll have to draw the line lol
Yeah like, Luka’s obviously bad but the whole team also didn’t rotate. Latravia and Luka didn’t communicate on the first play here for sake.
They just have zero players who know defence
No point putting up 30 points if u are gonna let them do this. Mind you he has been super inefficient this season
And leading the league in turnovers per game.
He tries to do a quick trick play precision pass way to much. Like just rocketing the ball to a guy in the paint when there’s practically no chance it gets to him. I think 90% of his turnovers this season are from that kind of crap.
Let them do what? Score on 2 vs 1 fast breaks? Mos of these possessions are either bad team defense, or situations where most people wouldn’t be able to stop the opponents from scoring.
This is what people don’t seem to understand. You need to play both sides or the points you score are just redundant.
Let them do what? Score on 2 vs 1 fast breaks? There is some laziness in a couple of these possessions, but most are either bad team defense, or situations where most people wouldn’t be able to stop the opponents from scoring.
Flagg better
JJ looks like he wants to die
What’s wild is….this was better than a week ago lmao
I think people have to come to terms that hes more James Harden than he is LeBron James.
Personally to me he’s worse. Harden could be a decent defender when he wanted to be
Luka has no chance
I still remember that one season when Harden was known as Haren because he would just stand there and let guys fly by him. Cost him a chance at MVP because he was putting up crazy offensive numbers that year too.
Full hate before 2025 ends I see.
Man that one of the 1 minute mark of this video is indefensible. Why did he stop running back?? He could easily have gotten in the way of the basket and at least forced detroit to pull the ball out
Lazy luka lazy lazy luka
Luka dead ass might never win a mvp
Seems likely actually
A player that puts that little effort on defense should never win MVP imo
Honestly he’s fat again
he plays like he started the game with five fouls
Exactly this
bootum peaked too soon, hope he’s looking down on this so proud
looking up at this you mean. i miss that dude too lol
we’re leaving him in 2025
You’re a wizards fan buddy
Someone needs to put a James Harden defense vs Luka defense video together.
nba fandom really has just become hating everyone that isn’t your favorite player/team. insanely corny way to exist online.
He’s learned so much from Lebron… about how to use blame-other-teammate hands whenever he fails on defense, makes a bad pass, something generally unfavorable happens, etc.
Giving “James Harden Defensive Juggernaut” vibes
Laziness and poor fundamentals is inexcusable at this point. He plays with a top three creator of all time and another all star level guard, he doesn’t need to dominate offense like in Dallas.
He finally got his conditioning up to par in the off-season, but there isn’t a single top 30 player ever who was this terrible on defense. Even Steph has turned himself into an intelligent and capable defender especially when he needs to be, same with Jokic and Magic and every other all timer who had their defensive efforts or abilities in question.
Same Luka different team.
Stop picking on him, offenses pick on him enough
I don’t understand why Jokic gets a pass on defense but Luka doesn’t lol
They both get a pass from a certain type of fan.
Is he doing this to get JJ fired? I literally have never seen somebody give a shit this little on defense
He’s an excellent watcher
He’s getting paid to score for half a game and watch the other half
Nice gig
lol did Nico made this video？
Well, at least he didn’t try
Lmao I’ll repeat it every time. I have no idea how people enjoy watching him
But I thought Europeans had the toughest tough defense that’s so tough NBA players could never handle it
I noticed there was a lack of Pistons highlights from the game posted here.
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How do you hide your top 3 players being bad on defense? Are there two defenders in the world that can make it work? Like Wemby and OG? Would that do it?
You put offense not defense .
No need to be a smart ass when you can clearly see the Mavs did this well
the guy just knows ball
he’s not being a smartass whatsoever
Yeah they just need someone who’s efficient, athletic, plays defense, doesn’t turn the ball over, and can play off-ball
who’s better at their job, luka has a defender, or Reggie Miller as a color commentator?
I like Reggie as a commentator so win for him.
He got his PRA so who cares
It gets to a certain point like how bad defensively can you be to still be considered a top 5 player. His offense also hasn’t been that crazy to make up for the atrocious defense.
Never has been, never will be.
When the playoffs start every team plan will just be to attack Luka
I know DA isn’t the point of this video, but he also plays this fake contesting defense. Just top to bottom we are absolutely terrible.
He got fat shamed and fixed the issue. Unfortunately there isn’t a pill like Ozempic to fix shitty defense.
He’s so fucking useless hahahaha
Interesting his feet just won’t slide on defense but is totally fine offensively.
Real Kuzma energy
This lowlight reel isn’t that bad, the matador defense on Cade in transition was hilarious, not closing out on Sasser as he’s falling out of bounds was bad.
its bad but this isn’t out of the norm for him, and he’s still being productive scoring. one of those lowlights has cade on a fastbreak…nobody is stepping infront of him
management should be blamed for not having a contingency plan the day they traded for him. you need to surround him with 3 and D guys
In like a month he’ll have like a 4 game streak of putting up good numbers in some wins & people will swear in here that he’s actually an above average defender & that the no defense thing is a myth
And yet he’s still pulling down 8 boards a night. Imagine if this guy learned how to hustle. He’d be putting up Jokic numbers
Mavs tricked us
So now everyone saying if they were in Nico’s shoes they would’ve traded Luka as well? These nba subs is comedy shit really a sheep mindset 😂 whatever gets the most upvotes becomes the new narrative lmao
I wish the pistons could play the Lakers every night if that’s what it takes to get highlights
There was like 3 plays here that were completely on Luka (getting back on defense and those bad closeouts). For the other plays, another Laker had to make a rotation to help and didn’t
Can’t believe Reaves tries running his mouth from the bench after what happened last year when he had double digit turnovers against us in a single game because our boys hound him and he’s soft as shit with the ball. The reaction from him at the :40 mark is great, he can’t even talk shit properly to our boys. Just constantly embarrassed against us.
We have a term in the UK ‘bang average’. Best US equivalent is ‘mid’.
Both apply here.
Lmao the dude getting the Harden slander
Does he exclusively play DPS in Overwatch? Because these clips make it feel like he’s one of those.
Top 10 worst defender oat, with a lot of career left
This guys post history is hilarious just feeds off hate
Lolol. Seriously though, I have to imagine he plays like this to conserve energy for offense. You’re banking on his offensive skills more than compensating for the lackadaisical defense. I’m not convinced it’s a winning formula, but hey he did bring the mavs to the finals
Dude would have loved to play for D’Antoni. “Half the defense, double the offense.”
Defensive Potential Of the Year
This is higher quality defence than we see in All Star games
James Harden really plays better defense than Luka..
Everyone else’s fault
I actually thought some of these were decent effort towards the end of the video then I realized the video starts in the 4th and goes to the beginning of the game. So it just got way worse late in the game last night? I fell asleep watching it so it’s a genuine question
Mavs are shopping Anthony Davis I heard. Would make a great defensive anchor for the Lakers. Mavs need a bit of a floor general. Would be a great trade
They want this man as MVP when he literally doesn’t play half of the game
This is Nico Harrison propaganda
If your a professional athlete and your body is worse than my neighbor who goes to the gym 2 times a week you got serious problems.
He’s back out of shape
Nico was right
Some of it isnt that bad tbh
I wouldn’t trade Cade for him. Don’t feel like a homer saying it. Cade is a good defender.
lol…ain’t no way his fans can defend this shit. truly awful
Thats the NBA today, I havent watched a game in over 8yrs lol shit is dead, boring, and the game is only dying on tv… its hurting them lol
If Nico actually got a decent trade package of him people’s opinions on that trade would start to shift. Too bad it’s still a bad trade
Nico had the right idea, it’s the historically bad package he got that makes this so bad. And the fact that he only dealt with the lakers and not open up a bidding war is what made this awful and he absolutely deserves to be fired for that shit.
Misleading title.myoumcant put luka defensive and highlights in one sentence
Isn’t the first play laravia’s fault? Looks like Luka puts his arm out to tell him to guard the corner man.
Now the Harden comparisons are making sense. I remember the Harden defensive lowlights like it was yesterday too lmao
These seem more like Laker defensive lowlights. Does anyone on that team play defense?
Ever seen a guys body language go from competitive to, “I couldn’t care less”? Watch Luka in the final minutes of that game.
Just attack 77 and you get a free win.
More like Luka back breaking turnovers.
These hater ass posts fuel my body for some reason lmao
I made a post on the lakers sub about these issues and his horrible percentages and got downvoted to shit and also basically called an idiot. Luka can do no wrong I guess
Show Lebrons also….lmao
Its called effort man, MJ was still playing D when he was 40.
Are we seriously comparing a 26 year old to a 41 year old?
If Luka is this bad now imagine e how bad he’s gonna be when he’s 41
Keep making excuses for Lebron. I gurantee you dint even watch this game did you?
Dont care how old he is…. MJ was still playing D and giving effort when he was 40…. he gave a fuck, and had the pride to compete.
sooo yeah…..
Klutch doing a hit job on Luka
Nico fans get in here
Get everything you can get for Luka,LeBron and the 1st and build around Reaves and maybe Giannis.
What’s Nico up to?
For what it’s worth, it’s pretty obvious Luka’s playing hurt. He’s not great defensively to begin with, but his steals the last two weeks have halved from what he was averaging and his defense has noticeably gotten worse. Haven’t seen anyone bring that up.
Get off this man’s dick lmao you could do this for like 80 percent of the league every game
This sub spent 9 months getting Nico fired for making this exact observation.
Yaw straight up like locusts.
To be clear. This sub didn’t do anything about getting Nico fired, Dallas fans did… and we’d do it again