Luka\u2019s scoring magic<\/p>\n
When half-court isn\u2019t hard enough, Luka Doncic goes for the full-court heave. When a traditional three-pointer is a bore, he\u2019ll try a one-handed, underhand three instead. Doncic keeps pushing the ball higher and higher on trick shots that are approaching the rafters before they ultimately drop softly through the net. And with Doncic, they almost always do.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s done it so many times now,\u201d Lakers forward Matisse Thybulle said of Doncic\u2019s array of trick shots, \u201cthat [you] just kind of chalk it up to that\u2019s just Luka.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doncic is not only just up to his old scoring tricks, he\u2019s made them even better. After leading the league in scoring last year, Doncic is averaging 38.3 points per game through the first two weeks. And that\u2019s despite what he deemed a \u201cterrible\u201d start <\/a>while he was still trying to find his offensive rhythm.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live on a spaceship and we\u2019re going at the speed of light at all times when he\u2019s on the court,\u201d Lakers coach JJ Redick said Sunday after Doncic scored 45 points with six assists in a \u201csupernova\u201d performance that still felt \u201cnormal\u201d enough to get overshadowed<\/a> by his 15 defensive rebounds and five steals.<\/p>\n In his last five games, Doncic is averaging 43.4 points and 8.6 assists on 53.2% shooting from the field and 44.7% from three. His five consecutive games with 35 or more points matches the longest such streak for a Lakers player since Kobe Bryant averaged 53.6 points across a five-game heater in March 2007. <\/p>\n The Lakers (6-2) celebrated the Slovenian superstar\u2019s scoring prowess Sunday with a bobblehead giveaway. The miniature statue showed Doncic shooting a one-legged fadeaway jumper, one of his classic shots.<\/p>\n Doncic\u2019s jump shot has become his calling card while turning into one of the league\u2019s most dangerous scorers. Beginning in the 2023-24 season when Doncic won his first scoring title, at least 35.3% of his field-goal attempts each year have been from three. He never attempted more than 33.2% of his shots from beyond the arc during an NBA season prior to that year. The uptick in attempts has closed the gap between how many points he\u2019s scoring from two compared to points off three-pointers, and this season, the hot-shooting Doncic is scoring more on threes than twos. Through his first six games, Doncic scored 66 points on twos and 105 on threes. His 5.8 made threes and 13.5 three-point attempts per game both lead the league. In the small sample size, he\u2019s shooting a career-best 43.2% from three.<\/p>\n (Thuc Nhi Nguyen \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n For those who have known Doncic through different phases of his career, watching this dominant scorer emerge feels like watching a Pok\u00e9mon evolve.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just polished a lot of his offensive weapons, let\u2019s say,\u201d Doncic\u2019s longtime Spanish agent Quique Villalobos said. \u201cIf you ask me what is different from Luka in Europe than Luka in the NBA, Luka in the NBA is scoring much more.\u201d<\/p>\n The 18-year-old Doncic won EuroLeague MVP averaging 16 points, 4.3 assists and 4.8 rebounds. Even considering that EuroLeague games are 40 minutes compared to the NBA\u2019s 48, Doncic\u2019s 22.2 points per 36 minutes during his final EuroLeague season is still less than his NBA rookie rate of 23.7 points per 36 minutes.<\/p>\n Different rules also help NBA players stuff box scores. The NBA court is bigger (94 feet by 50 feet compared to 91.86 feet by 49.21 feet in Europe) allowing more space to move. Doncic knows he can take advantage of the NBA\u2019s defensive three-seconds violation by timing his attacks when the center leaves the paint. Doncic\u2019s pacing remains one of his sharpest scoring weapons.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say his patience,\u201d Lakers guard Collin Sexton said of what makes Doncic such a prolific scorer. \u201cAnd really not be able to be sped up at times. When you\u2019re not able to be sped up, you\u2019re able to control the game at your speed and do what you want to, no matter what the defense is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Doncic moves at a slow pace, but is creating loud moments. He is becoming ubiquitous around Crypto.com Arena. The full-page ad he bought in The Times for the season opener was blown up to more than six feet tall and displayed on the concourse at a recent game. Lakers girls wore his No. 77 jersey during a performance on his bobblehead night. And the sight of him hitting a contested step-back jumper will live in the nightmares of defenders all season.<\/p>\n New rules are a flop<\/p>\n As gracefully as a 40-year-old can manage, Al Horford attempted to spin across the lane. The Golden State Warriors\u2019 center stepped on Vanderbilt\u2019s foot and the Lakers\u2019 forward fell backward. Vanderbilt looked at referees in disbelief when he was called for a flop.<\/p>\n The NBA\u2019s new flopping emphasis has been a headache for players and coaches as they struggle to understand how referees will interpret the rules. While offensive players are often chastised for flopping in an attempt to get free throws, every clip in the NBA\u2019s four-minute video <\/a>about flopping focused on defensive players. During the video shown to players and coaches, the NBA\u2019s head of referee development and training Monty McCutchen emphasizes moments where the defenders\u2019 reactions are \u201ctheatrical and excessive\u201d and are \u201cin a manner inconsistent with the contact.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked about the new emphasis from referees, Redick echoed sentiments shared by Minnesota coach Chris Finch last week, saying the NBA\u2019s focus on defensive flopping doesn\u2019t align with what the goal should be.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all recognized the fans want the offensive players to stop flopping, and all of our flopping fouls have been defensive,\u201d Redick told reporters in San Francisco. \u201cThe reality for the officials [is] each crew is so different and what they interpret is so different.\u201d<\/p>\n Flopping is one of the NBA\u2019s four points of emphasis this season. It may conflict with another area of focus, which involves cracking down on offensive players forcefully using their off-arm to create separation. Offensive players get a win with the emphasis on defensive flopping while the defense is supposed to get the advantage if referees are legislating off-arm push-offs out of the game.<\/p>\n The two sides are then left asking for different things on the same play such as the Warriors\u2019 Brandin Podziemski pleading for the foul while Austin Reaves motioned for a flop with his arms extended and palms up after the two collided on an in-bounds play last Friday.<\/p>\n Neither player got what they asked for.<\/p>\n On tap<\/p>\n Wednesday at Kings (1-6), 7 p.m. PST <\/p>\n The Kings finally won a game, taking down Dallas for their first win of the year Monday. Rookie guard Darius Acuff Jr. isn\u2019t shy in his first NBA games: he is second in the NBA in field goal attempts per game with 23.6. He is averaging 26.1 points per game.<\/p>\n Friday vs. Trail Blazers (5-1), 7 p.m. PST <\/p>\n The Lakers lost to the Trail Blazers last week but Portland is already a different team. Ja Morant will be out for at least most of November after he suffered a grade 2 hamstring injury on Oct. 29. The dynamic guard will be out for four to six weeks.<\/p>\n Sunday at Pistons (6-1), 3 p.m. PST <\/p>\n The Pistons have impressive early season wins over Boston and Philadelphia despite an injury to center Jalen Duren. The center who was at the center of an offseason contract feud was sidelined for at least two weeks with a hamstring injury, the team announced Oct. 25.<\/p>\n Monday at Atlanta (4-4), 4 p.m. PST <\/p>\n Forward Jalen Johnson is backing up his first career All-Star selection and a third-team All-NBA honor by leading the Hawks with 18.1 points, nine rebounds and 7.9 assists this season.<\/p>\n Favorite thing I ate this week Lime and cilantro marinated bean salad.<\/p>\n (Thuc Nhi Nguyen \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n I somehow got into the bean evangelist corner of the internet and now I\u2019m a believer. I\u2019ve been on the fibermaxxing routine with meal-prepped bean salads, including this cilantro lime find from Pinterest. The dressing is sweet, savory (from a tablespoon of miso paste), tangy and herby and it all came together in 20 minutes. It would have been even faster if I didn\u2019t accidentally spill an entire bowl of marinated red onions on the floor during assembly.<\/p>\n In case you missed it<\/p>\n \u2018Like a supernova.\u2019 Luka Doncic\u2019s 45 points only eclipsed by his defense in Lakers\u2019 win<\/a><\/p>\n Lakers blow 25-point lead in double-digit loss to Warriors<\/a><\/p>\n Mark Walter, Josh Kushner agree on outstanding terms linked to $12.5-billion Lakers sale<\/a><\/p>\n \u2018A true professional\u2019: Jarred Vanderbilt leads Lakers\u2019 bench unit against Clippers<\/a><\/p>\n Plaschke: LeBron who? Lakers happily shed the burden of departed star<\/a><\/p>\n Former Laker Malik Beasley agrees to plead guilty in federal court over gambling ring involvement<\/a><\/p>\n High-scoring Lakers stress they need to play championship defense<\/a><\/p>\n Until next time…<\/p>\n As always, pass along your thoughts to me at thucnhi.nguyen@latimes.com<\/a>, and please consider subscribing<\/a> if you like our work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to The Times\u2019 Lakers newsletter, where, no, we did not get a Luka Doncic bobblehead. Fans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[316234,28136,32481,29980,6306,4281,355,298096,10643,15553,4697,99,316235,1599,2384,183835,166373,1975],"class_list":["post-904475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-big-trade-move","tag-guys","tag-howard","tag-jerami-grant","tag-lakers","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-nba","tag-next-month","tag-pandemic","tag-player","tag-players","tag-sports","tag-talen-horton","tag-team","tag-time","tag-trade-season","tag-tucker","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904475","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=904475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1793715737_208_.png\")
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