It has been a rough past few days for Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks. Doncic, after getting a heckling fan ejected in their blowout loss to the Suns, was on the receiving end of plenty of criticism on social media, and the Mavericks star also ended up beefing with a polarizing reporter as a result. But on Friday night, Doncic showed that when's at the top of his game, there may be no more unstoppable force in the NBA than him.
Facing the Atlanta Hawks, the team that traded him away during the 2018 NBA Draft for Trae Young and the pick that became Cam Reddish, Doncic looked like he had all the motivation in the world to put up the greatest performance of his career to this point. And that's exactly what he did. With the Mavericks still missing Kyrie Irving due to injury, the Slovenian superstar put up a career-high 73-point performance in a 148-143 win in Atlanta.
Everyone who witnessed Luka Doncic put the Hawks defense to the sword was watching greatness. After all, Doncic looked like had his shot success game sliders set to 100, with the Atlanta defense unable to stop the Mavericks star from getting to his spots for the majority of the game. As per StatMuse, Doncic is the first player in NBA history to score 70 or more points in a single game on 75 percent shooting from the field or better, which is simply unparalleled levels of efficiency.
Shooting 75 percent or better is remarkable for any player, let alone for someone who commands double teams on a nightly basis like the Mavericks star does. Doing so on eight shot attempts (six makes) is already admirable, but Doncic made 75.7 percent of his 33 (!) shot attempts on the night, with 13 of those being from downtown (he made eight triples).
One of the criticisms of Luka Doncic is his subpar (relative to his high standards) output from the foul line. And yet in his demolition of the Hawks, he made 15 of his 16 freebies — a marvelous percentage (93.75 percent) for a player shooting 76.9 from the line on the season.
Make no mistake about it, barely any, if there were at all, of his points were stat-padded; the Mavericks needed all of his 73 points to win amid a night where the rest of his team weren't quite at their best.