Luka Doncic is doing everything for the Dallas Mavericks
It's a daily lottery for the Mavericks, and sometimes it's a slog. But Luka solves all problems.
It has felt like a struggle at times this season for the Mavericks, who had perhaps the worst offseason in the league. They lost Jalen Brunson for nothing and signed Javale McGee, who quickly fell out of the rotation. They might have seemed like a disappointment, considering their propensity to take bad losses and their high expectations after their Western Conference finals run.
But you’d be surprised how well they’re doing this year. They’re 13-11, a perfectly solid record in an even Western Conference, with the seventh-best net rating in the league. They are seventh in offense and 11th in defense. Luka Doncic leads the league in scoring and has a usage rate that would rank ninth all-time.
They have won four of their last five games, including wins over the Warriors, Nuggets, and Suns. Dallas is a weird team because any run of success is correlated sharply with improved three-point shooting; just look at Spencer Dinwiddie and Tim Hardaway Jr., who have been hitting all of their shots lately.
The Mavs’ formula is simple: rely on Doncic to draw defenders and either score or kick to open shooters. When they’re able to defend at the same time and hit those shots, they’re very hard to beat.
Doncic creates open looks in every way. He leads the league in isolations per game (scoring 1.12 points-per-possession) and ranks fourth in possessions as the pick-and-roll ball-handler (1.02 PPP, an elite number). He’s also third in post-ups per game, with similar efficiency as Zion Williamson and Joel Embiid.
The burden on him is massive, and yet he hasn’t faltered. He is great at slowing down the game and dissecting, understanding every defensive coverage that teams throw at him. He holds the ball to draw defenders and jumps in the air to pull defenders toward him. He is amazing at disguising his intentions:
That play is called a Spain pick-and-roll, a common play in the NBA. It’s a screen-the-screener action; a third Mavs player (Hardaway Jr. here) comes in behind the initial screen defender (Deandre Ayton) to give Luka two immediate options: Christian Wood’s roll or Hardaway’s pop. The Suns defend it well.
But Luka spins into the lane against a smaller defender and leaps. Look at how he holds the ball:
What does it look like he’s going to do here? Shoot, or lob to Wood, right?
Well, that’s what Devin Booker thinks. Booker’s job here is to help Ayton defend Wood while also covering Josh Green in the near-side corner. Doncic keeps his eyes on Wood until the last possible moment, when he kicks it out to Green. Booker is too far away to contest.
Doncic does this sort of thing all game. He freezes defenders, manipulating to generate open looks:
Imagine you’re Bismack Biyombo there. You want to help in the paint, as Wood seals a smaller defender, but you’re also guarding Maxi Kleber, a threat from deep. Luka holds Biyombo’s attention and whips a no-look pass to Kleber.
His timing is impeccable:
Sometimes you have to wait with the ball to draw defenders. Sometimes you have to throw early passes before the defense can set itself. Luka has an innate sense of which to choose.
The result of this Luka-centric offense has been open threes all over the place. But when those don’t fall, they can go stale. Reggie Bullock, one of their top three-and-D role players, has been ice cold all season and recently fell out of the starting lineup. Only recently has Dorian Finney-Smith started hitting.
Doncic is the league’s best shot creator. But he is also the Mavs’ only shot creator. There is no more Jalen Brunson on this team. Dinwiddie and Wood can get buckets, but they are isolation and post scorers, not necessarily pick-and-roll creators. Subsisting on Dinwiddie stepback threes is not sustainable.
The Mavs are 28th in shots within five feet of the rim. They lead the league in corner threes, though, thanks to Luka. They take the fourth-most three-pointers per game that NBA.com tracks as “wide-open,” with the closest defender six or more feet away.
Overall, 48 percent of the Mavs’ shots are threes, second-most only behind Golden State. Those threes go to capable role players, but not exactly Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Dallas is overly reliant on three-point shooting variance.
One thing that would help spur easier offense is pushing the ball. They rank 29th in pace, as Luka tends to slow down the game. Sometimes a simple hit-ahead pass does the job, and can get them running:
Young Josh Green, a bright spot this season, has the athleticism and ball-handling to get by players in transition. His attacking off the catch has been valuable for the offense in general.
Another struggle for Jason Kidd has been trying to find lineups that balance offense and defense. Wood is a weak defender, and struggles as the sole center, but the defense is better when Kleber plays alongside Wood. Striking the right balance is a big part of Kidd’s job.
The Mavs’ ceiling may be limited with this sort of reliance on shooting. But they’re still a team nobody wants to face, capable of threatening the elites on any given night.