Boston’s half-court offensive strategy is to force Luka Doncic into a corner and defend.
On Wednesday night, that led to foul trouble. A couple of silly fouls, a bad call on a reach-in in the third quarter and a couple of 50/50 calls in the fourth quarter all worked against Doncic. He fouled out with Dallas leading 20-2 and cutting Boston’s 21-point lead to just three. After Doncic fouled out (and while he played for most of the game), the Mavericks just couldn’t mount enough offense, We lost 0-3. And the ending of this series is clear.
“I just wasn’t physical,” Doncic said of his sixth foul. “I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything. I got six fouls in the NBA Finals, so that’s basically what I think.” [motions with palms out]. hey hey. [Be] It’s better than that.”
“Yeah, he definitely has a target on his chest,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said, “and he’s got to be able to defend and understand that if he loses we’re there to protect him and help him.”
Let’s take a look at the six fouls Doncic was called for.
Mavericks fans will be upset about the sixth call, but it was a 50/50 call. Jaylen Brown made the contact, but Doncic wasn’t in legal guard position. The fifth call was also 50/50. Doncic shoved Brown, tripping him, but Brown tripped Doncic with his arm. That might have been the call that should have been challenged.
Doncic put himself in a bad position with some silly fouls, like reaching in from behind on Payton Pritchard and fouling Derrick White in the backcourt, and he also reverted to a bad habit a few times of yelling at the refs after no-calls and not getting back on the defensive end, but Boston is just not a good enough team to play 5-on-4.
Maybe Doncic gets the edge in Game 4, but he has to be better defensively if Dallas is to win. He’ll be a target again and he’ll have to be better to stay in the game. The Mavericks can’t afford to lose by 21 points again. Doncic fouling out may have killed the comeback chance, but the fact that he had to make that comeback might be the bigger story.
If Game 5 is played, Doncic will need to play better defense and stay on the court — and get more help.
