Luka Doncic Realized The Bucks Sniffed Out Jason Kidd's Game Winning Play With Ease And Promptly Lost His Shit Once It Didn't Work

Glenn James. Getty Images.

When you're facing elite teams in the NBA, you have to be as close to perfect as possible if you're goal is to win that game. You have to move the ball, you have to rebound, you can't turn it over, you have to make your FTs, you need contributions from everyone up and down your roster, and most importantly you have to execute down the stretch. That's why it's hard to beat the elite of the elite at this level. If you for whatever reason don't get all those things, chances are you're cooked.

A perfect example of this came last night in Dallas between the Mavs and Bucks. One team is arguably the 2nd best team in the NBA, and the other is this weird around .500 flawed roster team that just so happens to employ one of the best players on the planet. Despite the clear differences in these two teams, the Mavs were actually in a great position to pull off the upset. They had an 11 point lead heading into the final 12 minutes, and all you have to do in that situation is hold on. You can lose the quarter, you just can't lose it by 12.

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So what happened?

The Mavs lost it by 12.

The brutal part came via how they lost this game. Remember what I said about executing down the stretch in these huge games? Well, starting at the 3:41 mark in a 2 point game, we saw one of the most brutal finishes by an NBA team all season. Giannis fouled out with about 2:58 left in a 1 point game and I'm sure Mavs fans were feeling great. From that moment

In total, the Mavs shot 10-24 from the line in a game they lost by 1 point. That is BRUTAL. Dorian Finney-Smith missing those 2 FTs in the final 10 seconds to keep the Mavs up 1 as opposed to 3 was the final kiss of death. You all knew what was coming after he did that

After this play, the Mavs weren't done choking in the moment. You see they could have immediately taken a timeout and advanced the ball and had around 7 seconds left. That changes pretty much everything in terms of what you can do for a potential game winner. Instead, they foolishly inbounded the ball and went over half court, calling a timeout with 2.4 seconds left. Now all you can do is hope for a Luka prayer. I think you can imagine how that went

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Immediately we see Luka start to rage. He's clearly upset about something, but what? Thankfully, the internet was able to find us an answer. He was pissed because he knew that the Bucks knew the final play and he was pissed nobody on his own team realized it

YIKES that's bad. Where is Jason Kidd or literally any of the coaches? Luka looked over at the bench 3 separate times wondering why nobody realized that the Bucks were sniffing out their play. They were able to do that because the Mavs only run the same shit in these moments. The Bucks paid attention to the film and were more than prepared for the moment. A lack of lat egame creativity is a huge issue for Kidd and the Mavs, and this was the exact reason why. When you become predictable, you become easier to defend.

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Add it all together and that's one of the more brutal losses you'll ever see. It's crazy to think what the Mavs record would be if they just made some FTs

but they also didn't really help Luka out. Only 3 Mavs were in double figures, and only 2 other Mavs took more than 9 FGA. Dinwiddie was the only other starter to do it. At the end of the day, the Mavs didn't really move the ball (21 AST), didn't rebound (51-43), didn't get help from the "others" on their roster, and choked at the FT line in a big way. You can't do all that shit against a team like the Bucks and think you're going to win. Then when it came to the biggest possession of the game, they couldn't figure that out either. That's tough.

Now in the Play In, take a look at how jammed things are at the moment

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You start throwing away games like this and you could be in the Lottery before you know it. For a team like the Mavs who many thought would compete for a title this year or at the very least another WCF appearance, that would be a big time disaster.

P.S.

I guess you could say Jrue got his revenge for this dunk

sure the dunk is cool, but wins are much, much cooler.