Luka Doncic coughed the ball up eleven times against the Clippers, and the easiest reaction in the building was to blame someone else: a bad whistle, no calls on the hack-a-Luka fouls, the refs again. None of it was true, and Doncic didn't even try to sell it.
"Obviously, my game was terrible," he said after the Lakers' 125-117 win. "Not playing a great team game by me and AR, but we have a lot of room left." That's a guy who watched himself throw the ball away eleven times and owned every one of them.
He should, because the turnovers came from bad passes, lost handles, a travel, the kind of self-inflicted mess that happens when a point guard is still figuring out who's standing where. The Lakers committed 21 turnovers as a team, and Doncic's eleven plus Austin Reaves' six accounted for seventeen of them. JJ Redick didn't blame officiating either. He called it a turnover problem, flat out, and pointed at a roster still learning how to play together.
Rating
RatingIt's a less exciting story than "the refs are out to get him," but it's the true one. This is Doncic's second game running the show with LeBron James gone, trying to build chemistry with Walker Kessler, Grimes and Sexton in real time, in live games, instead of in July workouts. Eleven turnovers in that context is what adjustment looks like before it smooths out.
Notice who answered for Doncic's bad night. Reaves scored 28 points with nine assists and dragged the offense through Doncic's worst stretches. Kessler added 22 points and six blocks and was a plus player all night. The Lakers still won by eight. A team that gets its superstar's worst game of the season and still wins comfortably has depth.
RTGThe question is whether a bad game two games into the season means anything, and it doesn't, unless it becomes a pattern. Watch whether this turnover rate is still showing up two months from now. On October 23rd, it was one guy having a stinker in front of a sellout crowd, and he said so himself.
Fans reaching for the referees to explain this one think they're protecting Luka. They're actually refusing to let him take the accountability he already took for himself.
