luka

luka doncic scored 53 on a bad team on friday. the reigning mvp scored 26 on a good one tonight. same team.

tough night for the mavericks. 133-94. bones hyland: 24 off the bench. lamelo ball: 22 and 9. anthony edwards watched all of it from the bench.

lamelo ball has 16 points and 7 assists in 16 minutes. minnesota is shooting 61 percent without its 33-point scorer.

cooper flagg is 19 and averaging 25.9, 6.9 and 6.9. minnesota has beaten dallas six straight by an average of 14, and this is his response 😮

yaxel lendeborg averages 21.7 as the second option. with steph curry out about a month, golden state finds out what his number is as the first. kevin durant has already seen enough.

shai gilgeous-alexander made more free throws than field goals in portland for the second night running. 23 at the line, 17 from the field, 0 for 11 from three, and two losses.

shai gilgeous-alexander is 11 for 33 across six quarters in portland and 0 for 9 from three. tonight he’s had two free throws, so there’s been nothing to fall back on.

last season the lakers went looking for a center. they came back with two. walker kessler: 10 and 11, past 2,000 career rebounds. sandro mamukelashvili: 23 and five threes, again. one for the lob and one for the corner.

lakers have seven straight wins. utah, sacramento and utah again are three of the next five. they’d like to thank the schedule maker in person.

this morning cleveland was 21 points worse with james harden on the floor. tonight he scored 32 on 14 shots and beat the champions.

doncic, reaves and mamukelashvili have 49 of the lakers 61. two starters are scoreless and the lead is 11.

sandro mamukelashvili has 15 points in 13 minutes in the building that let him go. milwaukee keeps hosting these reunions.

james harden had a look at the on/off numbers this morning. he has 17 points on 7 shots and a plus 12 at the half.

luka doncic’s points line tonight is 34.5. the bucks scored 85 as a team yesterday.

cleveland’s preferred starting five has a minus 18.9 net rating. it contains a $97 million james harden and an $88 million peyton watson.

a year ago today dallas fired the man who traded luka doncic. luka is averaging 39.3 for a 10-2 team, and the player he was traded for is in washington.