The Luka Doncic trade shook the NBA world by storm last season. One of the best players in the league was traded without any warning whatsoever. Back then, then-GM Nico Harrison justified trading Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers by saying that “defense wins championships”.
Of course, Harrison was referring to Doncic's discouraging effort on defense. Even though Harrison has been fired as the Mavs' GM, Doncic still made a statement against the ex-GM when the Lakers played the Mavs this season in his second game in American Airlines Center as a player for LA.
Finding themselves down to the Mavs, the Lakers needed to make a run. That, naturally, required them to stop the Dallas attack. Dallas was very clearly hunting Doncic on defense, trying to get him on a mismatch. However, Doncic stood his ground, stonewalling the Mavs multiple times. Doncic finished off his defensive effort by drawing a charge against Naji Marshall that secured the victory for Los Angeles.
Afterwards, Lakers coach JJ Redick praised Doncic's effort on defense.
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“”We counted after the game, he had six straight stops where they targeted him,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said of Doncic, per ESPN. “Just a fantastic job from him. Then [he] makes the game-sealing defensive play with the charge on [Naji] Marshall.”
Of course, Doncic was still ever reliable on the offensive side of the ball. The Lakers star finished the game with a cool 33 points along with eight rebounds and 11 assists. LA needed every bit of production, as LA found themselves down by as much as 15 points in the fourth quarter.
Thanks to Doncic's brilliance and his timely defensive stops, LA was able to mount a massive 29-8 counterattack against the Mavericks. The Lakers hung on to the win, keeping their hold on the fifth place in the West.