Luka Doncic in the blowout loss against the Celtics: 25/5/3 on 9-22 FG and 3-6 FT with 2 turnovers and 4 fouls, game low -21
Lakers lose in a 20-point blowout against the Celtics
Source: https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401810678
The Celtics are clearly not afraid of Luka. He’s awful against them.
He feels like KD after 2022 now, where we kind of just figured him out and always have the gameplan ready to go.
In this case 50% of that gameplan is just to sic Jaylen Brown on him.
Or, in today’s case, to sic checks notes Baylor Scheierman on him. Still can’t believe that worked as well as it did
The C’s Just stick a random Lengthy white guy on star player has been working
Luka simply can’t handle guys who can keep up with him. If he can’t beat his man off the dribble he’ll either chuck up a bad shot or pass it with 5 seconds remaining in the shot clock.
it’s like Luka gets jealous of JB’s enhancements and it totally throws his game off knowing his own issue is more Turkey or bust
Jaylen Brown is an elite physical athlete at the same elite level as Luca Maglic. He’s also a really smart dude. Luca is awesome though; the Joe Mazzulla brand of ball is a bad matchup for him.
this is gotta be a joke right. you can say luka has more bbiq than jb but luka is nowhere near the athlete jaylen brown is.
Agreed?
I think he meant JB is as strong as Luka but more athletic.
Once our guys realised he’s just short, white Embiid it made things a lot easier.
Make him work and he’ll tire out.
And because he’s so ball dominant, barely any of his teammates will be ready to step up to take on more responsibilities.
Their playstyles create an environment where half the team is just guys running corner-to-corner and collecting a paycheck.
Honestly, this is kind of an insulting comparison for Embiid. Prime Joel was a demon defensively
Yeah but attacking his defence is still key.
It’s the reality for big men:
If they’re weak defensively - You run screen actions to exploit them
If they’re strong defensively - You run screen actions to pull them out of the paint
It’s why Rudy Gobert’s DPOYs always get called into question during the playoffs. He’s been so important to his teams’ defensive identities, that it becomes a weakness. Those teams are so reliant on his rim protection and they don’t know what to do once he’s pulled out to the perimeter.
And with Embiid, you also have the added benefit of wearing him down because he’s never properly in shape. That elite defence falls off hard once he tires out.
He’s very reactive defensively, he uses his freakish burst to get back into plays and make those highlight defensive plays, but a lot of that impact disappears once you sap him of his energy.
If you go back and watch our G7 vs Philly, you’ll see Tatum just hits a point in the 3rd Q where he starts hunting Embiid specifically. He scored most of his 51 points on Embiid that game.
There was the period early in his career when he hit a couple game winners (and assisted on another) against Boston.
Honestly ever since Mazulla took over, they’ve had his number tbh. I think he’s only beaten them once since (game 4 of the Finals).
He’s had plenty of great games against them
He killed us with some Luka Magic in the reg season a few times but we figured him out for the Finals and it’s been mostly embarrassing since them.
I mean he was 0-4 the two reg seasons leading to the Finals
is any serious contender afraid of Luka? dude is an inefficient turnover prone chucker who doesn’t play defense
Well he beat yall in 2024 when you were the first seed
Didn’t Luka had a negative on off that series? Mj washington was the reason they won.
Show me Thunders beating Luka in the playoffs and I’ll deactivate
maybe he’ll make it out the first round this year and you’ll get your wish
He for sure won’t this team is dogshit and it’s a gap year. Don’t run next year when the Lakers get Giannis
Giannis is gonna be 32 next year and his entire game is predicated on his physicality, don’t be surprised if the cliff is steep for him.
thing for now, there are not much serious contender on level like 24 celtics
I don’t remember the last time Luka played well against the Celtics
I was gonna say game 4 of the finals when they shit on us, but looking at his numbers he wasn’t even very good in that game, either. 0-8 from behind the arc.
Honestly ever since Mazulla took over, they’ve had his number tbh.
That’s basically the last time I remember Luka owning the Celtics lol which is at least 4-5 years back when he was hitting wild game winner shots against Boston
I was at my friends bachelor party one year and saw him nail a game winner from the corner, so probably that time
He was torn to shreds for his performance in the playoffs and being out of shape and then did nothing to change that the following season.
kG jersey retirement ceremony, Spencer hit the game winner but it was annoying to watch.
There was a stretch a few years ago where he was lethal against them especially in close games. Then the finals happened and it’s been belt to ass since
When he doesn’t get a couple calls, he completely loses his focus. On offense he starts forcing shots, on defense he complains to the refs.
Even as a fan it’s pretty rough to watch at times.
Don’t sell his game short, he complains just as much on offense
The exact issue that was coming up in the Finals a few years ago
He’s been the same player for legit years, same stuff we’ve talked about that have been issues every year, still persist. It’s so frustrating to watch bc he’s so good lol.
He was terrible all game lmao. Spent all game getting cooked on defense, foulbaiting for FTs and then complaining to refs. Airballed a floater down 15 which genuinely was hilarious
That’s probably two of my least favorite things about him; complaining to the refs and playing for FTs instead of playing to make the shot.
and playing for FTs instead of playing to make the shot.
I feel like he didn’t used to do this as much 2-3 years ago. I don’t know when he started it, but it’s sooo bad now.
He’s definitely been doing this for more than 3 years
He started it when he got fat and injured
Being a Laker and getting better calls probably negatively effected his game. Now he’s used to getting more calls so he gets out of wack when he doesn’t get them.
He started complaining like this WAY before he came to the Lakers
Freaking awful brand of basketball. How do people tolerate this shit.
I’m never defending him but that floater looked like it was intended for Ayton who is oblivious, still utterly hilarious outcome.
Except he was pretty good defensively, Brown tried hunting him to begin the game and gave up after 4 possesions
The weirdest thing on this sub has been the last year of people saying it doesn’t matter if your star player is lazy, out of shape, has no motor, and doesn’t do the little things on the court as long as his P/R/A is high and he makes All-NBA teams.
And then pointing to a 4-1 ass kicking in Finals as proof that this style can win a championship.
I could see a world where Doncic never wins a chip.
We’re living in it lol
It’s the world we live in
I’ve been saying it for years, you can score 30 points a game but if you give up 30 points a game cause you don’t play defense what does it really matter?
Yeah if Pelinka remains in charge
From your mouth to god’s ears 🙏🏾
It’s always someone else’s fault
I mean if it gets that bad he’d probably want out in 2028 to go play with Jokic in Denver or something
You’d need miracles to craft a team where Luka wins a title as the player he currently is
People get mad when you say it, but his comp has always been Harden, and…
Cook that flabby fraud.
Pillsbury doughboy
JxmyHighroller only cares about PRA
Every time I see his name in MVP talks I just have to bite my tongue on here. It’s absurd.
I’m at the point where to me nearly 100% of the difference between a good or a bad Luka game comes down to whether or not he does all these little things so many people downplay. All the things his teammates are apparently supposed to cover when he could get better at them tomorrow if he just tried. The relative low assists, rebounds, and efficiency matters less than things that aren’t in the box score with him.
People will blame the poor team effort on JJ endlessly like there’s something he or anyone besides Luka can do to get him to stop spending possessions on the wrong side of the court complaining. That stuff trickles down to the whole team. Rui, Laravia, Ayton, etc. aren’t playing focused defense for 48 minutes if Luka won’t even pretend to try. I thought for years it would change as he got older and matured. Now I don’t think it ever will.
Luka’s 2024 playoff run is going to be milked harder than the 2008 Celtics actually winning the championship the way his career is trending.
How about the 2022 WCF run? He’s 26 years old. It’s just insane the way you people act like he’s a 15 year vet who went to the Finals a decade ago. Like completely detached from reality.
If you swapped Luka with SGA on Luka’s 2022 WCF run, they’d say he got carried cause his team was literally up 2-1 in the first round without him. The fact no one gives Luka any grief, and in fact says he carried bums that year, proves he’s not a true tier 1 star.
lol you arbitrarily discounting his runs to the WCF or NBA Finals before he even turned 25 years old is absurd. Historically dominant postseason player at that age. And I think you know that.
Look at this point I think he’s solidly the 3rd best player in the league, he’s clearly awesome, it’s just he’s not exactly a young player anymore. He’s at the point with his talent and age where actual tangible achievements are going to be valued, fair or not.
would have lost in the first round aswell if not for Kyrie heroics
How did he make the Finals if that style can’t win?
Is your argument that it can only get you 3 wins from the title but nothing more? Really?
Yes. For example the 2023 Miami Heat were 3 wins from the title but they were never going to win barring something crazy like Jokic tearing his ACL. So I guess if you’re banking on something like that then sure you can win.
He also lost to the best finals team this decade.
They very likely would have won if they played the 23 Heat instead and Luka’s careerr and the narratives surrounding him would be much different.
How would they play the 2023 Heat without beating the 2023 Nuggets?
almost any conference finalist this decade would have beat the ‘23 Heat. Easiest ring in the last 10 years
Hey don’t let nuggets fans know they beat a play-in team and a 8th seed in route to their ring
Yeah beating the 4 seed Pacers in 7 with their best player hurt is WAY more impressive.
There’s luck in every ring it’s dumb when people try to downplay them
I agree. Every ring has an asterisk if you want to. Fact is we won. Nuggets won. Ima still shit on them cause we’re rivals though but still respect it. Last team standing and we both did it
That’s not the same lmao the pacers still won 50 games while haliburton played liked shit for most of the regular season
They also went to 7 games against the Thunder who injured. Also the East was way better in 23-34 than it was 24-25. The heat were the 8 seed but they were 46-36, the 8th seed in the east in 24-25 was 37-45.
Point is just about every title comes with some kind of luck and diminishing a title is dumb.
Weren’t the Thunder also injured, and also like the youngest team to have done it nearly 50 years?
They’re still like in the bottom 5 youngest teams in the league, and they’re showing consistent growth, part of that being slumps when injuries get sticky, they’re still #1 despite that though.
Not sure why people discount Thunder’s playoff run anymore, they’ve done more than enough to prove they earned that Ring and they are a damn good team that’s actually still rising, instead of stagnating or declining.
Be real, both the Pacers and the Thunder would’ve deserved that ring, but the Thunder won. They didn’t force Haliburton to play on a strained calf, which he played on and did really well in game 6 btw.
It’s just, if you discredit the Thunder’s playoff run, you literally are saying nobody they beat was good enough to stop a supposedly undeserving Thunder team.
That just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Reread what I said originally. I’m not discrediting anyone’s title, I’m saying all titles come with some luck. Trying to discredit a title is dumb.
The first person I responded to was a Thunder fan shitting on the Nuggets title, I was just pointing out the Thunder run had some luck as well.
People mention it literally all the time.
Never seem to mentioned the fact nuggets were 1st seed in west and went 16-4 in playoffs tho
I won’t say they would have won, but it would have been a series if Kyrie was even 60% of his usual self at Boston. He was just missing everything left and Right
This the ugly truth. Still grateful for that trade but we can only blame roster construction so much until fingers start pointing at Luka
I mean the roster sets a hard ceiling on the team’s success. Why bother pointing fingers lol.
We’ve seen what Luka can do with complementary players
I mean my point is even with a near perfect roster built to his strengths (2024 Mavs) it can only get you so far.
we only had that roster after the trade deadline and made it to the finals to run into the incredibly stacked celtics team.
it wasn’t like it was even a season of that roster being together. it’s wild we make assumptions now.
and for his stans, live in CURRENT reality!
no need to bring 2022 wcf or 2024 playoffs run anymore
luka watch is WAY DIFFERENT than 2 years ago
forget harden, at this rate, this will be Allen Iverson arc if he’s not careful (still top 30 of all time though)
he’s unlucky running against best team of all time in finals
Luka has proven he can close and dominate a playoff game on the road.
It doesn’t if he has a team full of good defenders that you can hide him in and a 2nd option, this Lakers team is awful fit for him
Not excusing his play, he should try harder on defense, be more consistent on offense and not have these types of games but you need a specific type of team with Doncic it’s very clear
I can’t believe this is what NBA discourse has come to. Your star is supposed to be the glue. He’s supposed to be the guy that fills the gaps. Have we forgotten what it means to be a capital “S” Superstar?
If you need a laundry list of perfectly fitting players on offense and defense to drive high level outcomes then there’s something wrong with your game.
I mean that’s just not the case, very few NBA stars can do that
Even Jokic needs a good team around him and hasn’t done shit without multiple elite defenders and facing awful teams on the road to a final
The super star isn’t supposed to be the glue, the super star is someone u build around, unless you’re like Peak LeBron who can play with anyone and win you 60 and make you a contender, then you are supposed to build around your star fits, Luka is clearly flawed but so are most stars and they need good fits/teammates
But this is just a hilarious time to say it because they got blown out and people come out saying stupid shit, “this is what NBA discourse has come to” yeah you saying this after a loss and just awful arguments?
Jokic needs elite defenders around him but he guarantees you a great offense pretty much on his own.
In the season where MPJ and Murray were out and the Nuggets were starting Will Barton/Facundo Campazzo/Monte Morris/Jeff Green alongside Jokic, he drove the #6 offense in the NBA.
The Lakers are #11 ON OFFENSE this year. Barely above average.
The Lakers are barely average because their best 3 offensive players have played like 15 games together
Luka isn’t as good of an offensive player as Jokic that’s very clear, he’s also not a center and a historically bad rim protector at the most important position, easier to build around
Again if you’re an offense only superstar in your prime and you can’t drive an offense better than #11 regardless of what’s around you then I have questions.
Dude STFU already you don’t know ball
Celtics haven’t had their best player all year so how is this an excuse
Cause the Celtic’s best player is JB lol
Not even close
JB can’t be a possible MVP candidate if he wasn’t a better player than Tatum. Tatum is not doing the shit Brown is doing this season. This is all without mentioning that Tatum will not be the same player post ACL injury.
I mean…he’s modern day James Harden.
People just made a mistake comparing him to LeBron. He’s not and never will be LeBron, which shouldn’t be an insult to say that he’s nowhere near the (at worst) 2nd best player of all-time.
They making excuses for someone who gets paid $60m a year.
I know people say he complains a lot but man, he complains a lot. So much so that it’ll be a 4v5 on defense. He’ll score his points but would give up just as much.
At one point he made a shot and immediately ran to the ref headed up the sideline as though he was defending the ref
Luka Garza and Baylor Scheierman actually contained him
What a time to be alive.
Celtics are one of the few teams who don’t double team Luka. Stops him from getting assists, and none of their players are afraid of guarding him 1v1.
It was Hugo Gonzalez not Luka Garza (they do kind of have the same build/hairstyle)
Just that Hugo is a way better athlete and has pretty insane upside.
Already a winning player
He is already the NBA’s net rating leader in like 600 season minutes afaik
I really think he’s gonna be huge for us before his rookie contract is over
Payton Pritchard outplayed Luka Doncic. Sheeesh
Payton Pritchard is in the second year of a 4 year contract. That entire 4 year contract is worth just over half of Luka’s annual salary (\(30M total vs \)55M a year). Best contract in the league
I feel a bit bad because he deserves to be paid like a starter but signing that contract before his breakout 6MOTY season might genuinely be one of the most important events of this team’s championship window
He gets paid 8 mil to play ball for 6 to 8 months a year, for an organization he’s bought into. He’s fine
Wasn’t close either.
Payton Pritchard outplayed Luka Doncic, Jaylen Brown, and LeBron James today what a guy
And Luka is an mvp runner up over Brown? Please ELI5.
neither should be
Lot of complaining and a lot of “lands gingerly” toward the end
Was he getting “hurt” a lot when things went badly?
This is the guy that they say is next up for MVP if Wemby, Shai, and Jokic all run afoul of the eligibility.
I still cannot believe how many people are discrediting Cade because his stats don’t pop out like the other guys.
But then you realize he’s averaging like 25⁄10 while finally starting to heat up from 3 and contributing to winning basketball. Great defender too. (Unless the 20 or so games I watched are deceiving me.)
Cade is honestly not far back from Jokic and Shai at all.
Luka having Cade comps is crazy the mavs are gonna win before the lakers
Box score watchers or Luka fans in shambles. Their Luka MVP narrative getting crushed lmao
Dude couldn’t even get into MVP talks while Jokic missed a whole month. He has no chance, he’s clearly a tier 2 player and not tier 1
Lotta people here can’t admit Luka is a fat, lazy player who gets by on talent. He will never be the best player on a championship team
That is harsh but true.
I love Luka and I honestly dont care about his complaining to the refs. At the end of the day his biggest issue is he has not improved at all for like 4 years straight
This season should have been the season where he takes the next step. He came in fit and healthy, had Lebron and AR to work with, and has been fully given the keys to the team this season (last season was a weird transition year in terms of that).
Instead, it’s literally just same old same old. No improvement at all, if anything he is already starting to slowly regress compared to previous years.
This 1 million percent. I feel like the regression mainly started when Nico Harrison got fired honestly
terrible
ouch
Not an MVP candidate
Sucks playing against actual good defense.
Dude got cooked by Payton Pritchard, ouch
Oh so this is what he looks like without the 100 calls every game
Foul baiting, Flopper no defense playing overrated fatass.
just popped in here to check whether Luka is the best or worst player of all time after this individual game according to the sub, looks like it’s option 2 for tonight, see yall next game
Ikr. These people are so delusional
I’m starting to sour on doncic
Welcome to the club. There’s a reason why Lakers fans haven’t fully adopted him yet.
Why? (Genuinely curious)
basketball
it’s clear he physically peaked at like 20 years old… I’ve never seen a 24-26 year old fall off physically/athletically like this without severe catastrophic injury.
I’m just really disappointed in him for this. I expected him to look like this at 35 years old, not 25.
Cade >
Luka is a much more talented player and a far better scorer, but Cade does so much more for your team in terms of little things, he is a plus defender and that dude is a fucking leader.
I understand why the Pistons play so fucking hard, if I was on their team, I’d want to run through a wall for Cade.
Luka and his style of play isn’t inspiring at all.
Luka’s play style is basically “im gonna do everything that’s fun/leads to stats, everyone else can do the other stuff (ie defense, boxing out, screens, off ball movement).
And then complain when you don’t do everything else while he’s blowing defensive coverages
Luka and Cade is the definition of hardwork beats talent
Not yet but in a year he probably will be. Maybe even by the end of this year.
Nico won the trade
Lost the battle, winning the war
He got tired of the fat slop with the shit attitude and ship his ass out
Give it 2 more seasons and Mav’s fans will have forgotten about Luka and will all be saying Flagg is better than Luka
I think he just hated Luka that much.
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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He can’t get anybody anymore. It’s sad to see. There’s just so much foul baiting and stepback 3s that comes with his game,
Seen the best of him. Declining since them. Falling in rankings, falling among fans.
He’ll recover to a bit but he’s neither consistent nor a leader.
He once came close to winning, was injured, on a weak team and we, of course lost. Not his fault but ever since, it’s a downwards spiral to some degree and it continues. It’s not all showing in numbers but it can be seen.
bum
But what was his true shooting percentage. That’s all that matters.
Don’t forget his vorp
Pravi MVP!!!
Shai wants that scoring title
He’s still one whole point behind, depends on how fast he adjusts coming back from injury, he might really end up with it
Luka will likely drop now that Lebron and Luka are both healthy. As long as SGA can maintain his 32, by the end of the season Luka will drop below that.
I’m starting to think maybe sending Luka to LA was a punishment
Tell tale sign on laziness is missing free throws.
Bummmm
Not much he can do carrying dead weight lebron
Is he injured? He can’t beat his man off the dribble anymore
There’s genuine mental illness here, people waiting for luka to have a below average game to start posting ridiculous levels of hate.
He’s had a lot of them if you actually use your eyes and watch the game instead of looking at the box score. There’s more to basketball than PRA
Fair enough but some of these comments seem proper hateful towards the guy
It’s generally fans of teams with a guy that’s like a top 5-8 guy trying to push him into the clear top 3 SGA/Jokic/Luka convo, except when those guys have bad games you rarely hear about it. Thunder fans are also extremely insecure about SGA’s spot despite the fact he’s about to win B2B MVPs.
Yeah these comments read like the comment section of a Fox News YouTube video discussing a Democrat. Like they’re all clearly hate-fueled and using this as an opportunity to make outlandish claims that would only be accepted in a hate thread after a bad game. The eagerness to pile on and hate is almost palpable.
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I’m happy that Luka owns our rivals in the West, like the Suns and Clippers, but he needs to play better against the Celtics.
It’s actually crazy that there’s a strong chance Luka never ends up being the best in the league
When he was young, it felt like he was on an MJ / LeBron trajectory. Obviously he still puts up numbers but he leaves something to be desired. He should be better than he is
r/nba doing its best to hide the fact LeBron was just as bad….as usual with his fanbase, and this sub may as well be their club HQ, it’s always his teammates who are to blame
Wow Luka is that bad he’s getting compared to 41 3rd option LeBron
Luka and jokic are the same player, different heights
Jokic is significantly better…
Now do Jaylen Brown’s.
bro is defending luka like he is still on his team ☠️
i don’t really blame Mavs fans for that, though? they didn’t ask Nico to make that dumbass trade
dont care about mavs fans feeling lol, brown has owned luka the past few yrs
i ask him though
but i want cade or antman so i still hate it
got flagg though so cant complain much lol
i mean i’m not gonna argue that JB wasn’t also very inefficient tonight, but, like… he scored more, had more assists, and he plays defense. we can take an off shooting night from Jaylen, but Luka kind of needs to play better than this for the Lakers to win
He scored more because he took 28 shots. He was brutal. Way, way more inefficient.
Luka plays like this and it’s a blowout. JB plays like that and they blow out the other team.
I think the irony of Brown being a way lesser passer than Luka or Cade for instance (to compare a star who can have inefficient scoring nights) is that his inefficient games don’t kill you that bad since he is willing to have other guys have the ball on offense. So unless it’s a dogfight for both teams or a cold shooting night overall Brown’s team can stomach an inefficient night.
Ehh, I would agree normally but he also turned the ball over way more. 5 TOs can absolutely sink your team even if you aren’t a passer.
This game was a blowout because all of the Laker’s key guys shit the bed, to be fair. If Luka played good, they still lose by like 10 lol
That is specifically because JB does so much beyond just scoring that impacts whether his team wins (defense, rebounding, assists, leadership, etc). Because Luka’s only real contribution is scoring, if he struggles to score then he doesn’t contribute anything else.
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Luka played defense too
So what Lukas still better than anyone on your shit roster
Are you talking about the Celtics?
Their roster isn’t exactly shit
They have Tatum, Brown, White, Vuc, Pritchard
Two superstars and 3 guys who play their roles very well
Unless you’re talking about other rosters idk
Which roster?