The Los Angeles Lakers have a problem that a lot of other teams in the league wish they had: there are two guys on the roster capable of taking the last shot with the game on the line. With the Lakers acquiring Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks in still-shocking trade that sent Anthony Davis to the Lone Star State, L.A. has now paired two of the most clutch players to ever slip on an NBA uniform. And yes, Doncic is already amongst the league’s elite clutch performers to ever play despite only having seven seasons under his belt.
Doncic has taken countless clutch shots in his career, perhaps most notable a go-ahead 3-pointer over Rudy Gobert in the waning seconds of Game 2 of the Western Conference finals a season ago, a game and series which Dallas won. LeBron James has whole YouTube videos you could pull up of his triumphant clutch shots over his 22-year career, but now that those two are sharing the floor together, who gets the last shot? On Wednesday it was James (who missed two potential game-tying 3-pointers against the Hornets), but both players noted that won’t always be the case.
“He had it going, so obviously we’re going to go to him,” Doncic said following the Lakers 100-97 loss to the Charlotte Hornets Wednesday night. “I think it will go both ways. One time it’s going to be him, one time me. So I think it depends how the game is going.”
James had the hot hand in the fourth quarter, scoring 16 of his 26 points in the final frame, including a 3-pointer to cut Charlotte’s lead to one point with 6.8 seconds left. It only made sense for the Lakers to continue to feed James down the stretch, especially as Doncic struggled mightily, finishing with 14 points on 5-of-18 shooting from the floor. He was dishing the ball and setting his teammates up, and finished with eight assists, but he also finished with six turnovers and couldn’t get into any sort of rhythm scoring.
So when it was time for the Lakers to try and tie the game up and potentially send it to overtime, the play was drawn up for James.
“We run the set that JJ draws up,” James said. “You execute it. And we executed it. We just didn’t make it.”
James had two opportunities to potentially send send the game to overtime, the first off an inbound-pass from Doncic at the top of the key, which clanked the front of the rim. But Gabe Vincent recovered the offensive board, and fed it right back to James for another try, this time at the buzzer, but a similar result happened, giving the Hornets the win.
“As a coach, you’re excited that you have two guys that can be the passer and be the guy who gets the pass,” JJ Redick said after the loss. “But it felt like LeBron, particularly in the fourth, just found a nice rhythm, and I felt really comfortable with that. And we got two good looks.”
James was completely dominating the Hornets in the fourth, especially Charlotte big man (and near-Laker) Mark Williams who provided very little resistance at the rim and was on the wrong end of a James posterizing dunk. So of course the final play was drawn up for him. Going forward, as Doncic said, there’s going to be times when he has the hot hand and the Lakers will give the Slovenian guard the ball with the game on the line.
But until Doncic has knocked off the rust from being sidelined since Christmas with a calf strain, LeBron may be the go-to guy in clutch situations in the interim. But once he’s operating at an MVP-level again, that tandem is going to cause major headaches for opposing teams.
“He still doesn’t know all the plays. He doesn’t know all the defensive coverages, all the signals and things that we’ve built since September,” James said. “So obviously we’re trying to fast-track it on the fly. He’s coming back from his injury. He’s getting back into form. So we’re all working through it together.”
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