Luka Doncic Is INJURED & This Changes EVERYTHING!

If you didn’t watch the game, you may not know that Luka was struggling with a neck injury throughout the entire game. Visibly wincing and being in pain, his production was clearly being impacted. And even tho I’m not saying that this is the only reason for their loss in game 4, it could change everything for the rest of the series. What up everybody my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. Doncic ended the game with 19 points on 9 for 24 shooting. And after being unstoppable for the first 3 games, you know that something was wrong here. Luka didn’t want to make excuses postgame and focused on the loss instead. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that the injury is making things much harder for him on the court, as if the Clippers aren’t enough. And speaking of them, lost in this whole thing is the performance of the 2 LA superstars. Kawhi is having an unbelievable series with 33 points and 8.5 rebounds. All of that while shooting a blistering 63% from the field. That’s virtually unstoppable. As you can see he loves the right side of the floor, of course owning the midrange. The Klaw has been torturing the Mavs with his backdown turnaround jumpers, regardless of who the defender is. Right here on the wing, he gets a switch away from Kleber who’s Dallas’ best big defender and you can see the entire team is clearing out on the left side, leaving Luka on an island with Kawhi. He attacks, the half spin, the leaning shot and the bucket. Again, with the slower Boban in the game, on the pick and roll, Leonard has all this space to just raise up and shoot from his favorite spot on the court. He does that and easily knocks it in. But he’s even deadlier every time he decides to put his head down and go all the way to the basket. There is nobody on the Dallas roster who’s been able to consistently stop him in his intention to attack the rim. Even with Kleber on him here, the Clippers isolate him again, and you see the determination to go all the way and look at the strength here as he bumps Maxi to the side for a layup. That was too strong, and this is too quick on the perimeter, as you can see the double screen setup up top for him to curl. But instead the Klaw flies by with the crossover and there’s no way Kleber can catch him as we check out this 2 handed dunk. But I have to point out Paul George deserves just as much credit honestly. Think about it: If the Mavs won game 3 and went up 3-0 everybody would disregard the fact that they hit 20 threes on a mind boggling 51%. Instead, people would take the low hanging fruit and instantly blame Pandemic P for it right?! Thing is, Pandemic P is an automatic 25 point per game scorer on 50% from the field so far in these 4 games. And almost 8 rebounds to go along with that. Sure, his 3 point shooting has been extremely bad so far but similarly to Leonard, there is no answer for PG when he goes inside. Luckily for him however, George doesn’t need to defend his good performance from the haters just yet, since the Clippers have tied the series all of a sudden, winning 2 on the road after losing the first 2 at home, and having the entire NBA world write them off. Talk about a wild series. Most importantly however, their sense of urgency and defensive intensity has been ramped up to playoff type level. After the initial 127 and 113 points that Dallas put up in games 1 and 2, they were only allowed 108 and only 81 last night. Although there were some wide open misses that the Mavs shooters should have knocked down and 5-30 from downtown wasn’t entirely because of the defense, the fact remains that games 3 and 4 the Clippers really had their backs against the wall and had to go all out on both ends of the court to get back in this thing. And they did that. Now with the Doncic injury, and going back home, the momentum seems to be entirely on the LA side. This matchup has proved to be wild however and I’m looking forward to a pivotal game 5 in Staples. Let’s see what happens. Let me know in the comments who you got in the next one. That’s it for now. Subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.