Now that the Mavericks have lost their fourth-consecutive match of the NBA season, everyone is starting to point fingers as they look for who to blame. While many fans and experts have shined a light over Luka Doncic’s lack of defense, the All-Star guard believes there is another recent over the fact that Dallas are 5-7 this campaign so far.
After their 115-113 loss to the Jazz this Friday evening, the Slovenian addressed what he considers to be his team’s biggest issue. According to Luka, the Texan club needs to improve their rebounding, as they’ve been clearly overpowered in the past few matches.
“We’ve (lost) four straight by basically two points, or three,” he said about his team, as they are ranking near the bottom of the Western Conference standings.. “There’s a lot of hope, but we’ve got to get better. We can’t get a rebound. I think that’s mostly the main reason why we are losing.”
We compiled Luka Doncic’s defensive highlights against the Jazz.
Everyone’s talking about the last play, but honestly, he was terrible throughout the game. Zero effort, zero desire. There seems to be a serious problem. pic.twitter.com/GGG0CUX2br
— A Walking Highlight (@11AWH) November 15, 2024
The Mavs are currently sitting just above the Trail Blazers (5-8), Utah (3-8), and the New Orleans Pelicans (3-9). In Friday’s contest, the game was tied at 113 with just 10 seconds left to the clock, when rival Jordan Clarkson took advantage of a defensive lapse by Dallas and set up John Collins for an uncontested dunk.
“That was a misunderstanding. I thought I was gonna go hit, and Grimes thought he was gonna go hit… We misunderstood the bench. That’s on me,” Said the European star, who was willingly open to accept the responsibility of his squad’s most recent defeat.
His coach, on the other hand, prefers to leave the past behind and improve quickly. “(The players) have things that go on outside of the arena, and that’s always monitored (but) those things aren’t shared publicly,” Jason Kidd shared. “This has been an emotional week, starting in Denver, having an opportunity to win there, and just the buildup of the game against Golden State with Klay.”
He then added: “We could be a little bit more concerned, not just about the buildup, but what the effects are. Yesterday and today, just the mental fatigue, the physical fatigue. So we’ve got to be cautious of that because we understand the league isn’t going to pause the games. But this has been an emotional week for everybody.”
Ex-NBA Star Gilbert Arenas is convinced that the Slovenian superstar will win this season’s MVP with triple-double stats
Ever since the start of the season, Gilbert Arenas has been anticipating that Luka Doncic will dominate this year’s competition.. The former athlete has already been eyeing up who is going to be this next campaign’s MVP, as he’s convinced this will finally be the year for the European star.
After the Slovenian took the Mavericks all the way to the NBA Finals last season, the three-time All-Star has high hopes that the 25-year-old is only going to get better and better, and should be able to improve his individual stats. This would be quite a feat, considering he averaged 33.9 points, 9.2 rebounds and 9.8 assists per match across 70 appearances.
Nevertheless, Arenas thinks he will achieve more with Klay Thompson at his side. “I don’t want to put this type of pressure on him. I’d be surprised if he don’t average a triple-double. Because if you average that many assists with what you had, now you got (Thompson) who’s a catch-and-shoot, so some of your assists will come without even any effort this time,” he said before the season start.
The ex-NBA star believes that all he needs now is a trophy and he will definitely improve his game. “You should average a triple-double. He will probably be the number one candidate for MVP. He’s gonna do something that hasn’t been done in a few years,” Gilbert insisted.
