Early in Thursday’s game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls, it didn’t seem as if Luka Doncic was going to have a great performance. He shot 4-of-11 from the field, and it looked like he may end up having one of those nights where he puts up a solid number of points but struggles to do so efficiently.

Then the alarm went off for the Slovenian superstar. Matas Buzelis, a Bulls forward who was guarding him, started talking trash to him. Doncic started getting hot, as he went 5-of-6 in the second quarter, and he ran his mouth back at Buzelis.

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While Doncic is soft-spoken and low-key off the court, he transforms into a different character on the court — one that loves to talk trash to opponents. He talked about his exchange with Buzelis after the Lakers’ 142-130 win.

“Somebody started to talk to me, so that woke me up,” Doncic said.

“… I’m not going to say what he said, but if I would’ve said that, I would definitely get a tech,” Doncic said when asked what the exchange between him and Buzelis was like. “But really, these games, sometimes you’re going easy and we kind of went easy in the first quarter, then he woke me up.”

Doncic ended up with a supernova-type performance: 51 points on 17-of-31 field-goal shooting, 9-of-14 from 3-point range and 8-of-9 from the free throw line, 10 rebounds, nine assists, three steals and one block.

On the other side, Buzelis, who scored 22 points but made just seven of his 19 shot attempts, admitted he learned a valuable lesson about playing against Doncic.

“Probably not to talk to him,” the forward said.

The Lakers’ victory was their fourth in a row and their seventh in their last eight tries. It elevated them to third place in the Western Conference and gave them a 41-25 record.

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They will next face the Denver Nuggets on Saturday in a game that will likely have playoff implications. Memo to Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and crew: Don’t poke the bear, so to speak.

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Luka Doncic on trash-talking Matas Buzelis in Lakers’ win over Bulls