Revenge is sweet.
The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the shorthanded Dallas Mavericks 107-99 on Tuesday night. This was Luka Doncic’s first game against the team he spent six and a half years with since shockingly being traded in the middle of the night a little over three weeks ago. Doncic had a solid performance with the 81st triple-double of his career, putting up 19 points, 15 rebounds, 12 dimes, three steals, and two blocks, but shot just 6/17 from the field.
That was just enough for the Lakers to come out on top, and while it was not the show stopping performance Mavericks fans usually expect out of Doncic, he was definitely dealing with a lot of raw and complex emotions before and during the game.
“It was just a lot of emotions and not much sleep,” he said of the game coming only 3½ weeks after he was traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Lakers. “I can’t even explain [it]. It was a different game. … Sometimes I don’t know what I was doing.
“And I’m just glad it’s over, honestly.”
During his postgame press conference following the win, Doncic was asked about seeing his former teammates again, specifically Kyrie Irving, who shared a moment with a handshake before and after the game.
“Kai is my hermano,” Doncic started. “We go way beyond basketball. It was good to see those guys. We went to wars together, and it was really fun to see them all.”
Embed from Getty ImagesMavericks guard Irving, who had a game-high 35 points, said the matchup was “awkward as s—” after squaring off against the same player he teamed with to take Dallas all the way to the NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics last season.
“But,” Irving added, “at the same time, it was fun. We got a chance to feel like we were in practice all over again going at each other. That was a good reflection point. And then just seeing the crowd cheer for him and just get him going … it was fun competing.”
“Obviously there’s a lot of emotion that goes in when you give so much to a franchise and you sacrifice for a franchise and you have that type of love and respect for a franchise — throughout all the journeys,” teammate LeBron James said of Doncic. “They went to the Finals, all that stuff. He’s grown from being an 18-, 19-year-old kid to now a 25-year-old man with a family. … And when you move on or they move on from you, it’s very emotional, obviously. It’s very taxing.
“It’s probably a lot of things that were going on in his head that probably didn’t even involve the game itself. And with that said, I thought he handled it tremendously.”
The meeting in Dallas on April 9 should be even more animated and emotional. This one was fresh since the trade just went down approximately three weeks ago, but the Mavericks fan base still has love and admiration for Luka Doncic. There is a good possibility they may be cheering more for Doncic in that game than they will for their own team.
