There wasn't much good that came from the Dallas Mavericks 132-109 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday. Not only did they throw away an early 16-point lead and get run off the court by the Suns, but star point guard Luka Doncic caught some heat for having a Suns fan ejected for a relatively tame bit of trash-talk, and then calling out a reporter for asking him about the incident.

It's safe to say that neither of these things were great looks for Doncic, and fans were quick to criticize him for his seemingly entitled behavior. The reporter, ESPN's Tim MacMahon, also suddenly found himself at the center of an unexpected drama, and he took a second to respond to Doncic's complaints, saying that he was simply doing his job whether he liked it or not.

“It gets down to this, 48 hours after his head coach calls Luka out for letting his frustration effect his focus, he melted down for an entire quarter when the Mavericks got outscored by 23 points and run out of their own gym, sorry that’s the story…Our job isn't to kiss their butts but it’s to chronicle the careers, and specifically of, the faces of the league in a lot of cases in which Luka unquestionably is.” – Tim MacMahon, Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective

Luka Doncic looking to put this incident behind him

Mavericks' Luka Doncic holding a basketball.

Doncic's behavior was certainly confusing, and he later took a moment on “Inside the NBA” on Thursday night to apologize for what he did, saying he wished he had managed to avoid the incident altogether. However, he's not getting off the hook fully with MacMahon, who doesn't appreciate that Doncic is getting upset with him because he is doing his job.

It's been a rough stretch as of late for the Mavs, who have lost their last three games, and Doncic will surely be looking to put an all-around awful game against Phoenix behind him. They will have a great chance to do just that when Dallas takes on the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night, and hopefully Doncic can lead his team to victory so that he can get the bad taste from their latest game out of his mouth.