It was a bittersweet playoff debut for Dallas Mavericks' star guard Luka Doncic. The 21-year old had a historic playoff debut. He scored a total of 42 points in his first ever playoff appearance, showing no signs of post-season jitters. This makes Doncic the first ever NBA player to score 40 or more in a postseason debut. He also added nine assists and seven rebounds.
Surely, Doncic would trade any of those stats for a win as the Mavs suffered a 118-110 loss against the second-seeded Los Angeles Clippers.
Doncic has been balling for Dallas in the bubble, averaging nearly a triple double with 30 points per game, 10.1 rebounds and 9.7 assists in their seeding games to earn him the nod for the All-Bubble First Team alongside his teammate Kristaps Porzingis. These two have been huge for Dallas to gain some much-needed momentum facing a highly-touted Clippers squad in the first round.
Unfortunately, it was an uphill battle for Doncic and the Mavs to pull a Game 1 upset against the Clippers. Kristaps Porzingis was ejected early in the second half for receiving two questionable technical fouls. The Porzingis-less Mavericks tried to stay in the game in the second half but a huge night from both Kawhi Leonard (29 points) and Paul George (27 points) proved to be too much for Dallas.
The play that had Porzingis thrown out of the game became the turning point in Game 1.
“KP had my back. He did it for me. He did it for his teammate. He had my back,” Luka Doncic said (per sportsnet.ca). “Not just me, but the whole team appreciates that. I don’t think it was fair to take him out of the game, especially in the playoffs.”
The Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Clippers will be back on the court on Wednesday for Game 2 of this best-of-seven series.
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