Phoenix EXPOSED LUKA Like Never Before...

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You see Chris Paul showing right away who he wants as the screener. It’s Cam Johnson who’s guarded by Doncic of course. Not a ton of fight here by Dinwidie to try and get over the screen, so as CP3 gets the switch he easily blows by Luka and if we stop it right here you see how many options he has. The pass can go to Johnson up top, Bridges in the corner, or to drop it down low for Byombo tho that may be in traffic. So as we let it go, you see that Cam cuts to the basket, gets it, and finishes nicely with the floater.Luka Doncic got exposed on defense by the Suns like never before. So let me show exactly what happened. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it.
Right here, on the high pick, Bullock doesn’t even want to leave Luka by himself against Chris Paul, so he goes for the double. And you can already see the space that Crowder has. Doncic will try to recover and come back here, but as we let it roll, you see that a simple head fake and a blow by leave him behind, and as Kleber goes up for the block, we got the pass and the dunk.
This time it’s Booker as the ball handler. He calls for the screen from Johnson, and as he gets it right here, you can already tell that the rotation is going to be Bertans on him, Kleber slides down to the corner for the extra pass, and by that time Luka should be able to get back to Byombo.
But as we let it roll Cam completely messes up all of that because he fakes the corner pass, and with Kleber leaving the paint to cover Bridges, now this is a 2 on 1 at the basket, Doncic is far from a rim protector and Johnson just casually floats this one in. Even in a situation like this where clearly there was a specific play that was gonna be ran, you see that Paul calls Byombo to come back so Bismack turns around and you can see Booker as well loosening up and just leaving his point guard get the switch. And from that point on, it’s easy, the little dance into a stepback- nothing but the bottom of the net. Let me give you a mind blowing statistic.
In this game, the Suns hunted Luka as the screen defender 50 times which is crazy in itself, but get this: in those instances, they scored 1.72 points per possession. For those of you asking if 1.72 points per possession is good,
all you need to know is that a typical NBA team has about 100 possessions per game, so hypothetically if Phoenix only forced this- they would score 172 points per game against the Mavs. Whaaat.
So yeah, going at Doncic is paying off big time for Phoenix, and I don’t see how Dallas could counter that.
Chris Paul was feasting on this switch and ended the game with 28 points and 8 assists on 11 for 16 from the field that’s almost 69%.
And this was just the icing on the cake in the fourth quarter. Incredible.
Moving on, after the game Luka was asked about this and he took the blame for it but also said that the entire team has to play better overall.
This is the exact same thing that the Mavs themselves did to Donovan Mitchell, and that’s pretty much how they won the series.
This is how the Heat hunted Trae Young, and this is the exact same reason why Duncan Robinson gets either DNPs or very little playing time. He just cannot hold his own on the defensive end. And in the playoffs this is the most important thing. Defense.
You’re only as strong as your weakest link, and we saw last night how just 1 weakness can be exploited over and over again generating bucket after bucket.
And in defense of Doncic, the guy just has to do so much offensively, to even keep them in the game. Having strong and athletic guys like Crowder and Bridges, Phoenix plays him 1 on 1 trying to exhaust him as much as possible so then when they go on the other end he’s already gassed. And trying to keep up with CP3 is nearly impossible. So this is the result.
If last game Dallas made 16 threes on 41% and I said that this was a best case scenario for them, now they made 17 threes on 41.5%, Doncic still had a great game and they still lost.
Because once again Dinwiddie and Brunson went a combined 6 for 22 from the field, similar to the 9 for 24 from game 1.
In order for the Mavs to even have a hope to win this series, at least 1 of them needs to have a breakout game and help Doncic in carrying the load offensively.
We know how the role players always tend to play better at home, so as the series shifts to Dallas, I expect more from them, and a much tighter game.
Let me know in the comments if you think that they can make things interesting at home. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.