Lakers in a 116-110 victory over Dallas<\/a> on Saturday night was a nice bonus for Doncic, who took another step toward the rest of his career with a visit to his first NBA city that wasn’t nearly as emotional as his return last April.<\/p>\n\u201cThere\u2019s still emotions, trust me,\u201d the NBA’s scoring leader said after going for 33 points and 11 assists and beating Dallas for the fourth time in four tries. \u201cBut a little bit better, a little bit easier for me. It\u2019s unbelievable. I\u2019ve still got a lot of fans here, players, some other people. I\u2019m happy to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doncic has tried to be clear that he’s moving on, and maybe Mavericks fans are getting there as well.<\/p>\n
The game lacked \u201cFired Nico\u201d chants \u2014 the ones fans used briefly after general manager Nico Harrison was let go by Dallas in November following a slow start, with lingering resentment from many for a trade that is easily viewed as a setback for the franchise.<\/p>\n
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The centerpiece for Dallas in the deal was Anthony Davis, the oft-injured big man who has missed more games than he’s played since joining the Mavericks.<\/p>\n
When Doncic visited a year ago, about two months after the early February trade, the Dallas crowd was likely to launch into \u201cFire Nico\u201d chants, which were still happening early this season.<\/p>\n
For the Slovenia stars’ second visit, the most noticeable chants were a couple of \u201cM-V-P\u201d renditions when he was shooting free throws (he made 14 of 15).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe significance of this probably will be there for the rest of his career,\u201d Lakers coach JJ Redick said before the game. \u201cThis is where it started for him. It\u2019s where he made his first Finals appearance. It\u2019s where he was drafted. The significance for our team is there, and it\u2019s certainly there for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
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LeBron James and Rui Hachimura were the biggest catalysts for the rally from 15 points down in the final 7 minutes.<\/p>\n
James scored 11 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter after at one point having a minus-28 rating with a point total in the single digits. Hachimura had a four-point play and another 3-pointer on consecutive possessions, the latter putting LA up for good.<\/p>\n
Doncic did his share as well. His driving layup gave the Lakers a 116-108 lead with 50 seconds to go, and he turned to his old bench as if to say that was about it. Or maybe not.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard the bench said something about a travel,” said Doncic, who still found time for playful moments during and after the game with his former teammates. \u201cThere was no travel. Two steps. I just looked over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Right after that bucket, Doncic erased any remaining doubt by drawing a charge call against Naji Marshall. All the free throws made it a quiet scoring night for Doncic, but the shouts of his name from kids near the court were anything but quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest thing this year, he\u2019s just more comfortable,\u201d James said. \u201cUnderstanding the system, understanding the city, the city embracing him. Understanding it\u2019s his team, and we\u2019re all rallying around him. Obviously we know it\u2019s emotional, a big game, to come back and play your former team. He showed who he is tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe the next visit \u2014 not long before the end of the regular season in April and when the Lakers likely are on their way to the playoffs and Dallas is likely headed home for the summer \u2014 will be even a little bit easier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one year, and next year it’ll be two years and after that it’ll be three and we’ll just keep counting,\u201d Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. \u201cLuka’s moved on. And we’ve moved on.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Luka Doncic walked toward the wrong locker at halftime before a quick U-turn by Lakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[5554,1062,66655,6306,3013,3031,3014,765,59056,355,33866,99,37567],"class_list":["post-428486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-dallas","tag-jj-redick","tag-lakers","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-luka-doncic","tag-mavericks","tag-naji-marshall","tag-nba","tag-rui-hachimura","tag-sports","tag-the-mavericks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}