Darko Rajakovic “(To stop Doncic)We were on the body, we had two hands, we had two people on him. We made it as hard as it gets. Credit to him.”
yeah i mean im fine losing to stepback 99% smothered rainbow deep 3’s
gg to luka and no other laker lol
Luka is unbelievable. Took my dad to the game for his birthday and Luka just showing why he is one of the best to do it. The rest of the Laker team needs uhh.. some work. Lol
Some days I still can’t believe we lost him 😭
I still can’t believe you guys lost him and then proceeded to get Flagg.
It is definitely a trade lmao. I still believe that number 1 pick “came” with that trade.
Kessler was pretty good too
box score looked good but i felt underwhelmed for the matchup
we ran scottie and cmb at center most of the time and it never felt like he punished us
I thought he did good defensively mainly. Everytime Luka tried to throw him a lob, CMB intercepted it.
i was expecting kessler to dominate the paint, he still played well but he didn’t go off the way i thought he would
Ar was also better than the stat sheet would suggest, he got dudes plenty of good looks that they didn’t capitalize on and was given the ball for multiple grenades
Luka is so easy to play perfect defense on because he’s not really fast so you can smother him all you want. The fucking issue is he just hits the shot anyways 😂 Kobe was very similar, you could stay on him and not bite on his pump takes but it didn’t matter because he’d just elevate over you and hit the jumper. Some guys are just so good that defense doesn’t matter.
Those guys also have technique and tricks to help them get their shot off.
Kobe had great footwork, and the threat of his versatility in shot making meant that the defense would never be 100% confident.
Yup, Luka is a quick bump for space and he doesn’t need much to get it off. Kobe was just a nightmare, he can go left right middle and just hit the shot whether there was space or not.
There was a great article about Battier and his defense on Kobe. Battier knew all the stats, drank up Kobe’s favorite spots, what he shot from where, evolved a technique to block his eye line to the basket, tried to degrade his efficiency etc. And Kobe still hit the shot with Battier draped all over him. At that point he said, just tip the hat and move on
Top 5 defensive team in the nba tried everything with a DPOY calibre player directly guarding him but Luka still dropped 45 on them on insane efficiency. Nothing can stop Luka but himself and injuries he will piece up any defence in the world.
Luka probably will get his but at the end of the day basketball is a team sport and they will need more than him to really go anywhere
Depends on your definition of anywhere. He showed he can get you to the finals at least.
Ya but wasn’t he kind of fat? What’s the point of going to the finals if your star is fat and drinks lemonade?
The fanbase likes it, for some reason.
Where they lost against a Boston team that would’ve beat any subsequent champion while his teammates shot 20% from wide open threes.
Nico is such a fucking idiot. Mavs would have been insane last year. Or even this year. If only they kept the core together.
Yup, especially with how rattled Luka can get at times when his shot isn’t falling and he isn’t getting his calls.
Unfortunately, reaves is not the answer for that lol
i wanna see Reaves on the same roids that giannis is on. dude’s looking a little natty
Yeah we have nine seasons of evidence of that.
We know who he is.
He’s Sharpshooter77.
At least I think that’s his Overwatch name.
Donatello
How does this guy not have an MVP yet?
Pelinka is the one stopping Luka with this flawed roster
No glaze but Luka genuinely doesn’t have any way to get stopped defensively. Maybe that’s why people like to catch him flack for his defense. It’s his “kryptonite” even though I personally believe his incredible offense way more than balances it out
It’s def not glaze. Players at that level you just pray you can still win despite their performance. But they will perform.
It’s like lebron when the three is falling. You just pray it’s not enough and do your best on everyone else.
He’s the best 3 level score & playmaker ever. No one can 3 level score like him whilst playmaking like him. He leads the league in 3pt attempts year after year on very good shooting splits whilst shooting the hardest 3s out of everyone.
Here yall go with the bullshit
There’s a very short list of people that comes close to Luka when it comes to 3 level scoring and playmaking.
Bird is in the convo, Jokic is in the convo.
You could argue that Jordan was a more dominant scorer, but Luka has him beat at 3 point shooting and playmaking.
LeBron is up there, but Luka is a better 3 point shooter by far.
Steph is the better shooter, but Luka is the better playmaker.
James Harden is basically a worse version of Luka across the board especially in the playoffs.
Who else is even in the conversation? Maybe Nash, but he doesn’t have the volume
His two unstoppable moves:
step back 3 and 6’8
infinite jab-step pumpfake in every direction
Tatum could be so great if he learned to simplify
Luka is anything but simple basketball. Man’s will yeet the toughest shots.
Why don’t anybody else does the same thing? Are they stoopid?
Jokic also plays no defense but he doesn’t catch half as much flack as Luka
Also, defense should matter more to Jokic since he’s actually the center. Luka can just hide in the corner and help.
Luka is on the Lakers. He gets more shit for that, whether fair or not
Wasn’t Clippers vs Mavs really close?
I think if Kawhi was playing, they’d have infinitely more success.
Clips played worse when kawahi was playjng
As a lakers fan, OKC and BOS gives luka problems. They have multiple wings they can throw at him on single coverage.
Low key it’s that he can also focus most of his energy on offense cause he takes a breather on D
It’s hard to stop a man hellbent on finally getting his mvp. Which he should already have had btw!
In what year
that year he also had 73 points, 60pt triple double.
When he finished third?
yea…. unfortunately no one watches Dallas games
2024 he was pretty clearly the best player in the league
jokic is jokic and he was operating at an insane level, but what luka did that year was simply more impressive. jokic got it because of team record and he was snubbed the year prior for embiid, but luka being third behind him and shai is just people using team record as a shield to ignore how simply better luka was
yea it was a makeup MVP to give to Jokic for embiid, media isnt going to skip one year by giving MVP to Luka, then give the makeup to Jokic the year after. It had to be Jokic that year for the immediate makeup (in the media’s minds)
Better in what way? You can’t just say he’s better because you said so. Most logical people think, statistically, you’re splitting hairs at that upper crust in 23⁄24, so it should logically go to the teams that are top two seeds.
“most logical people think the way I do” - some dude not worth debating with
dallas being a top seed is way more impressive than denver or okc doing it, they were super injured the whole year and luka carried the fuck out of them.
33/9/9 on great efficiency
carrying way worse roster to the finals no one had them in.
btw your in every luka thread hating and baiting, it’s sad.
23-24, EPM which a lot of analysts ESPN guys and NBA commentators reference / referenced regularly changed its model to be more accurate and now suprise it has Luka as the best player that year. He averaged 34 pts, 9.2 rebounds 9.8 assists , 2.1 steals on 62 TS%
It’s extremely tough to win MVP as a 5th seed if you’re not clearly the best player when the other two candidates are top two seeds. I doubt his EPM was much higher than Jokic/Shai, but I can’t access the data because it’s paywalled
Luka taking NNN pretty serious
Coach is not wrong
Ayo, we doing phrasing still?
Giggity
mvp
They genuinely did try everything. When he was in foul trouble they tried baiting him to get him off the damn court. Lakers got one of his fouls overturned only for Luka to idiotically pick up a fifth on his own lol. But clearly it was a solid plan
Pause
Man, I love Darko. There’s sumn about him that I find very charming 🤔
When you can feel their body… C’ Mon
If you make me hard as I can get it only gonna get me going more
Forgot “he’s so big” in the title