Doncic's 73-point miracle: like a show for the fans, he only focused on the next game

原文编译自：The Athletic

作者:Tim Cato

原标题：Luka Dončić’s 73 points sets career high, Mavs record: ‘We can’t take him for granted’

Luka Doncic's night, a hellish 73-point game, set a new NBA record against his unlucky defender, and it all started with missed shots.

About an hour before he started making history, Doncic's hand was unusually out of shape. After Friday's 148-143 win over the Atlanta Hawks by the Dallas Mavericks, Doncic said, "In the warm-up, I missed a lot of shots. "Darrell Armstrong is one of the Mavericks' assistant coaches, and he warms up with Doncic. He told Doncic what he would always do when it came to such a situation.

Armstrong recalled that he told Doncic: "You have to give it your all to shoot accurately. After the latter hit his first few shots, Armstrong had a hunch that it would be a good night and could even score 50 points.

Armstrong told The Athletic: "But, damn, I didn't know he was going to be so outrageous. ”

Then again, maybe we all should know that after the week Doncic spends, this storm is coming.

On Monday, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd said the team lost focus due to a referee's decision in the loss to the Boston Celtics. Two days later, the Dallas Mavericks lost to the Phoenix Suns, a game in which Doncic picked up a technical foul for arguing with the referee and his request to eject a Suns fan from the game in the third quarter made headlines that day. On TNT's "Inside the NBA," which aired on Thursday, Doncic admitted to the blame for the conflict with fans, saying, "I probably shouldn't have done that. This is not dissimilar to many of his previous remarks, in which he admits that his constant complaints to officials do not help.

But these are constructive critiques of a generation of geniuses whose accomplishments began as a teenager and who has spent every year on the basketball court sweating it since. The reason we ask these questions about Doncic is because his accomplishments are likely to reach the highest level in the sport, not because there are doubts about his ability on the court. Because it's well known.

Whenever there's a challenge, every moment we forget, Doncic reminds us — just like he did on Friday.

"We can't take it for granted, he's playing differently on the pitch than everyone else," Kidd said. ”

Doncic's 73 points not only set a career-high and all-time record, but also became the NBA's highest single-game scoring score since the late Hall of Famer Bryant scored 81 points on Jan. 22, 2006. Doncic became the fourth player in NBA history to score 73 or more points in a single game, joining Wilt Chamberlain (100, 78, 73), Kobe Bryant (81) and David Thompson (73).

Doncic said after the game: "These names are really special, incredible. I just feel honored to be mentioned with them. "

Doncic's performance began immediately. He scored the Mavericks' first two points with a layup, and then scored another 16 points in the first quarter. Kidd said he told his coaching staff in the first quarter that he thought the team might need a 50-point game from their superstar. But even if Doncic had scored 18 points in the first 12 minutes of the game, it wasn't a clear sign that this magical night was coming.

Markieff-Morris said: "He usually does. "Markieff Morris is a 14-year veteran who has played for eight NBA teams. Morris has seen his teammates score explosively before, but not once like this one.

"I've never seen anyone make it look so simple," he said. ”

Doncic could have scored 75 points. Well, if he has a vertical bounce of 1.2 meters, teammate Josh Green defended the empty catch pass he threw at him in the opening minutes of the first quarter, and Green sighed and said, "He's more athletic." "But he pointed up!" Doncic had to restart the offense despite receiving a pass.

Doncic said (maybe a little optimistic): "If I was running, it would have been different, I was standing and I couldn't jump. ”

When the second quarter began, Doncic officially kicked off an amazing night. That's when he scored 30 points, then 40 points, and finally 41 points.

"I think everybody knew that at the time," Morris said. ”

On the bench, his teammates made small talk to each other, convinced that Doncic was heading toward the 60-point mark.

Seth Curry said: "But I didn't know it was going to score 70 points. ”

Doncic's 41 points were the third-most by an NBA player in a first half, and his 16 shots in the first half were also the third-most in any half. It was an ideal scoring performance, with just four free throws in the first half as Doncic dismembered Atalanta's defenders with shots at all levels.

Kidd described Doncic's focus this way: "It's a different Luka, he's going to get emotional on the court. He can become shy off the field. He played well tonight in an introverted way unlike anything he'd used to be. ”

At halftime, Doncic was the last player to leave the Dallas locker room, and he started slowly and then rushed off the court, overtaking the coach who was walking with him, and soon started a new all-time record.

Since Doncic was "a tactical plan in itself," the second half started similarly, as Kidd said. He hit a step-back 3-pointer and then hit both free throws, followed by a layup and another 3-pointer. When Doncic is really feeling good, he often makes shots that don't even fit his technical characteristics. With 3:14 left in the third quarter, he stepped back at an angle behind the baseline and hit a 3.9-meter shot. After the ball was scored, he scored two more points and his score came to 55.

At the start of the fourth quarter, Doncic scored eight points on three consecutive offenses before Hawks head coach Quinn Snyder called a timeout. At this point, as Kidd expected, Dallas needed every minute of Doncic's because the Mavericks only led by nine points. After the timeout, Atalanta finally began to double up Doncic, no matter where he was on the court.

Grant Williams said: "That's another thing, with eight minutes left in the game, they started to double him in the half. Imagine how great you have to be (to do that). This is crazy. "

Doncic's basketball journey began on the court in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he was born. "Sometimes those [20-year-olds who receive the ball] don't allow me to play because I'm 10 or 11," he said. But even on this day when Doncic scored more points than all but three players in NBA history, he wasn't more than that.

"A lot of times, when you feel this way, you say, 'Hey, I can break the bag, I've got the team this far,' but he's not that simple guy," Kidd said. ”

Perhaps the most decisive scoring opportunity of the game came when Doncic could have shot from the left side with 1:16 left in the game. But two defenders rushed at him, so he passed the ball to Dante Exum, who was standing in the top arc, who hit.

A round later, Doncic ended the game with a driving layup. He hit a free throw and scored 73 points.

Officially recorded in the history books as a reminder of his outstanding achievements, it is a breathtaking display of what he has been here, and a look forward to his career that is not yet halfway there. We were fascinated by his performance, and we didn't know when the next performance would come. And, sooner or later, it will come.

Kyrie Irving happily yelled at Doncic as he walked across the court into the visiting locker room, "Can we talk about this?!"

But when everything calmed down, when his teammates had long since left, and when the only reminders of his 73-point performance were reporters waiting for interviews and the score table on the table, Doncic tried to explain what happened. But in reality, he is already thinking about the future.

"We've got less than 24 hours to play again, so I've got to recover, man," he said. "

He then walked down the aisle to the bus waiting for him, ready to show us once again what he was capable of on the basketball court.

That's for us to see, to admire, to cherish. For him, less than 24 hours later, there is another match.