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Dave McMenaminMar 20, 2026, 01:57 PM<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Lakers and NBA reporter for ESPN. Multiple Authors<\/p>\n MIAMI — When Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> star Luka Doncic<\/a> went to the free throw line Thursday with 14.8 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, needing to make one out of two to reach 60 points, a funny thing happened in Kaseya Center.<\/p>\n The Miami Heat<\/a>‘s home crowd started chanting, “MVP! MVP!” for Doncic.<\/p>\n “It was pretty impressive, especially an away game in Miami,” Doncic said after L.A.’s 134-126 victory<\/a> extended the team’s win streak to eight. “You hear the whole crowd chanting, ‘MVP,’ that’s what I think every player wants to hear. … I got a lot of goosebumps, so it was pretty special.”<\/p>\n Doncic missed the first free throw and stepped away from the line and smiled while composing himself before making the second — notching the third game of at least 60 points in his career and the highest scoring game ever by an opponent in Miami, eclipsing James Harden<\/a>‘s 58 on Feb. 28, 2019.<\/p>\n When the final buzzer sounded, Doncic was mobbed by his teammates on the court, circling him to celebrate his fourth game with 40-plus points in the past eight games.<\/p>\n “I mean, that’s what it’s all about,” Doncic said of his team’s reaction. “You see everybody celebrating on the bench … it shows that we care a lot about each other. And that’s what great teams do. Just makes my heart happy seeing them celebrate my 60-point game.”<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n The outburst came a night after he scored 40 points in a win over the Houston Rockets<\/a>, as Doncic, LeBron James<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a> all played in both legs of the back-to-back after being listed as questionable with various knick-knack injuries.<\/p>\n “I mean, obviously you’re tired, but I think it was more mentally,” Doncic said. “Like JJ [Redick] said before the game, ‘It’s a mental game.’ And that’s what it was. You just got to say to yourself you’re not tired and keep going.”<\/p>\n Doncic’s final line was 60 points on 18-for-30 shooting (9-for-17 from 3), 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 5 steals. It was just the fifth 60-point, 5-steal game in league history, joining Harden (2019), Allen Iverson (2005), Michael Jordan (1993) and Rick Barry<\/a> (1974).<\/p>\n During the Lakers’ win streak, Doncic is averaging 40.9 points per game.<\/p>\n James started the game 7-for-7 from the field and finished with 19 points on 8-for-12 shooting, 15 rebounds and 10 assists for his second triple-double of the season. Reaves scored 12 of his 18 points in the second half to help L.A. overcome an early 15-point deficit.<\/p>\n Redick came into the night stumping for Doncic for MVP consideration, even before he became the first Laker to score 60 since Kobe Bryant’s brilliant career finale back in 2016.<\/p>\n “He’s playing as well as anyone in basketball,” Redick said of Doncic. “He’s really elevated his play at a really important time for our team. He’s elevated the play of his teammates. I think there’s a trust level that we all have — coaches, teammates — with him closing games for us. He’s been fantastic, and I think he’s one of the best and should be in the MVP conversation.<\/p>\n “Hopefully people will start talking about that because he’s having as good a season as anyone.”<\/p>\n Asked whether there was a specific turning point in Doncic’s season, Redick could not identify one. Instead, he credited the overall mindset Doncic has adopted.<\/p>\n “I think some of it [for Doncic] is just being clear headed,” Redick said. “With all that’s happened with our team, he’s just in a really good place and he typically performs at his best when he’s clear headed. And that’s what we spent a lot of the season trying to get to, not just for him, but for all our guys.”<\/p>\n Reaves was asked to make a case for Doncic to be considered on the same level as other MVP candidates such as Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, Denver’s Nikola Jokic<\/a>, Detroit’s Cade Cunningham<\/a>, Boston’s Jaylen Brown<\/a> and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Leading the league in scoring,” Reaves stated to begin his argument. “I said to somebody he was leading the league in a lot of things. [The Lakers are] third in the West. I don’t know. I couldn’t see a reason why he’s not, so I don’t really know. I don’t think what I say is going to really matter, but he definitely should be in that conversation.”<\/p>\n Doncic did not offer an opinion on where he thinks he ranks in the MVP race with a few weeks remaining in the regular season.<\/p>\n “It’s you guys, the media [that votes],” Doncic said. “I ain’t got nothing to do with it.”<\/p>\n Redick, who was an NBA awards voter and worked as a podcast host and ESPN broadcast analyst before coaching the Lakers, took a swipe at a narrative propagated by some of his former media colleagues when asked for his opinion as to why Doncic hasn’t received more public MVP support thus far.<\/p>\n “Because he complains to the refs,” Redick said, sarcastically. “I don’t know.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave McMenaminMar 20, 2026, 01:57 PM CloseLakers and NBA reporter for ESPN. Covered the Lakers and NBA for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-552204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCovered the Lakers and NBA for ESPNLosAngeles.com from 2009-14, the Cavaliers from 2014-18 for ESPN.com and the NBA for NBA.com from 2005-09.<\/p>\n