Banged-up knee and feeling ill at all, Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic simply refused to give up.
Not this time, not when they're as close as they've ever been to putting away the Los Angeles Clippers.
“You talk about adrenaline in a playoff game, once you get started, you want to do everything you can to help your team win. I just wanted to keep going,” Doncic spoke after leading the Mavericks to a 123-93 win over the Los Angeles Clippers for a 3-2 lead in their West Round 1 battle.
— NBA (@NBA) May 2, 2024
🪄 35 PTS
🪄 10 AST
🪄 7 REB
🪄 14-26 FGM
Game 6: Friday, 9:30pm/et on ESPN pic.twitter.com/XRmQKGtf32
The multi-time All-Star revealed his illness made things “tough,” and his knee is “not really good.”
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) May 1, 2024
Doncic suffered a right knee sprain in their Game 3 win at home and has been playing through the injury ever since.
Despite these physical struggles, the Slovenian wizard is averaging 30.1 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 8.8 assists in five postseason games so far, but struggled on the field behind a 42 percent shooting and a measly 26 percent clip beyond the arc.
Doncic, however, lauded the Mavericks' stingy defense in Game 5, holding down the Clippers to a horrible 26 percent shooting from three (9-for-35) after making 18 triples in Game 4.
“Everybody’s on the same page on defense. We talked and knew [what] other players wanted to do…. and we just focused. I think the communication we have on defense is the key.”
A win away from finally returning to the West semifinals for the first time since 2022, the Mavericks superstar emphasized their big road win and vowed to be all-out back in Dallas for Game 6.
“I think it was a very big game. We win, and now we’ve got to win one out of two. We’ve got to go back to Dallas and play the same way. We just gotta win one more, we didn't do nothing yet."
Game 6 of the series will be on May 4, Saturday, 9:30 a.m. (PHL time) back in Dallas. And if necessary, Game 7 will be back in Los Angeles on May 6, Monday.
