If you spent the first week of November telling anyone who'd listen that Luka Doncic is a slow, stat-padding bore, Friday night was not kind to you.
With 4.3 seconds left in the first half against Portland, Walker Kessler grabbed a defensive rebound and flung the ball to Doncic, standing on the opposite side of the floor with nowhere to go. He tossed up a 61-footer from just inside the arc on Portland's end, and it banked in. The Lakers walked off down 60-53 instead of in real trouble, and the whole night turned on it.
The shot was more than a lottery-ticket heave. The Lakers were shooting ice-cold from deep, 4 of 23 from three at the break, and they'd opened the game missing their first 15 attempts, including all 12 in the first quarter. Los Angeles trailed by as many as 16. On a night when nothing was falling from distance, the one shot that did fall traveled 61 feet and flipped the energy in the building. Doncic put it plainly afterward: "I think it changes the whole energy in the team and in the gym. I thought it was an important shot to make, so that's why I decided to make it."
Rating
RatingThen he backed up the swagger. He dropped 20 points in the third quarter alone, more than Portland's entire team managed in the period, as the Lakers took the frame 34-15 and ran away with it. He finished with 53 in a 124-118 win, capped by a jumper in the lane with 27 seconds left. That's his 11th career 50-point game, which ties Allen Iverson for 10th all-time.
Call that boring if you want.
RTGHe went 17 of 33 from the floor and 5 of 15 from three, so it wasn't a clean night shooting the ball, and he does spend real stretches barking at officials. But "inefficient on a given night" and "boring" are different complaints, and people keep swapping one for the other. A guy averaging 40.1 points a game through the Lakers' first 10, hitting nearly 42% from three over that stretch, who answers a cold shooting half by banking in a 61-footer and then outscores the opponent by himself for a quarter, is must-see television.
There's a crowd insisting his foot was on the line and the shot should've counted as two. It shouldn't. Every account of the shot has it launched from behind the arc, which is the entire reason it's a three. There was no review, no overturned call. People are reaching for an asterisk because the shot embarrassed a take they'd already committed to.
The "boring" camp refuses to sit with this: Doncic does this regularly. He pulls off the improbable, momentum-snapping shot that has no business going in, again and again. Most players never hit one like it in a career. He produces them often enough that fans show up some nights just wondering if tonight's the one.
Measuring Doncic by what he hasn't won misses the thing right in front of you. He is, through this early stretch of the season, the most watchable player in the league, and he just gave you 61 feet of proof. The only people who found it boring are the ones who weren't watching. Luka decided the ball was going in before it ever left his hand.
