There's no doubt that Mavs superstar Luka Doncic is one of the top players in the NBA today. However, his defense was badly exposed on Wednesday night as Chris Paul and the Suns took full advantage of Doncic's shortcomings on the defensive end.
After a tight game throughout the first three quarters of play, Paul led a relentless onslaught for the Suns, who themselves went on a mind-blowing 20-2 run in the final period. Throughout the blistering run, Paul continuously hunted Doncic on defense. Time and again, the Mavs star failed to contain CP3. This resulted in some unadulterated bashing on the mean streets of Twitter (h/t Rob Goldberg of Bleacher Report):
*Luka Doncic guards Chris Paul*
CP3: pic.twitter.com/VYVY0ewEow
— NBA Memes (@NBAMemes) May 5, 2022
Chris Paul waiting for Luka Doncic to switch on him pic.twitter.com/AxqKpCG2eN
— NBA Memes (@NBAMemes) May 5, 2022
Suns looking for who Luka Doncic's man is this quarter like pic.twitter.com/AoT2II4ieT
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) May 5, 2022
Some experts also chimed in on the criticism thrown all over the Mavs superstar:
The Suns relentlessly hunting Luka Doncic. isn’t gonna be something that changes the rest of this series either. That’s bad news for the Mavericks.
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) May 5, 2022
Chris Paul is torching Luka Doncic whenever the switch opportunity presents itself. No mercy from CP3.
— Evan Sidery (@esidery) May 5, 2022
CP cooking Luka out here.
— David Aldridge (@davidaldridgedc) May 5, 2022
Chris Paul is giving Luka Doncic a taste of how almost everyone else feels going against Luka Doncic down the stretch.
Ooof.
— Callie Caplan (@CallieCaplan) May 5, 2022
While some of these mean tweets go somewhat overboard, the fact of the matter is that their premise is true. The Suns ruthlessly exposed Luka as a defensive liability for the Mavs and it resulted in Phoenix taking a 2-0 series lead.
Games 3 and 4 will now shift to Dallas and the Mavs will have home-court advantage. However, there's no denying that they're going to run into the same Luka Doncic problem if the Mavs are unable to do something about CP3 and Co. hunting down their superstar on the defensive end.
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