The Devin Booker-Luka Doncic Feud Is Alive And Well, So Let's Hope We Get A Mavs-Suns Playoff Rematch
Hoooooooh YES. Inject the NBA playoffs straight into my veins yesterday. The drawn-out, load-managed regular season has to be truncated at some point. You still awake over there, Adam Silver? Anyway. There's so much parity in the postseason race out West, and we have two of the best players on the planet in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving trying to jell on the fly and be that missing piece for the Suns and Mavs respectively.
Had to say all that to set up the closing sequence of Sunday's thrilling game in Dallas, where KD drilled the winning jumper and two icing free throws. But what happened between that — Luka Doncic missing a bunny shot and Devin Booker trying to talk shit — was what had me most excited about the finish.
That set the stage for Luka and Booker to get hot and heavy with each other, which led to both benches clearing and the two superstars being assessed technical fouls. Additional players needed to be separated.
I guess Booker is a little bit in his bag given the hot streak of play he's been on of late. Perhaps he's emboldened a tad by Phoenix's acquisition of Durant, which has netted a 3-0 record so far.
But let's not forget. Booker has been antagonizing Luka with all sorts of trash talk for a while now.
And I don't care if Booker goes 100-0 against his archnemesis for the rest of his career, The Luka Look is the GOAT sports-related screenshot of my lifetime and Booker can't possibly do better than this.
When the Suns were up 3-2 against the Mavs in last year's conference semifinals, they proceeded to choke and get blown off the court by scores of 113-86 at Dallas and then 123-90 AT HOME. Blogged about the latter and quite literally could not find the words to describe what had transpired.
Luka's postgame comment is glorious. This spat ain't going away!
Booker didn't disappoint at the podium either:
If the NBA regular season ended today, the Mavs would be the seventh seed and forced into the play-in tournament, while Phoenix would be the No. 4 seed and face the Warriors. What an absolute banger of a first-round series that'd be, holy shit. KD against Golden State right out of the gates!? WHAT.
Again, the West is wide-open, but you can't deny Durant gives the Suns an extra lift. Although Kyrie has played quite well since landing in Dallas, the bottom-line results haven't been there in terms of wins and losses. The Mavs are only 4-5 with him.
I think Dallas will figure its defense out down the stretch, or at least expend more effort on that end of the court. They rank 24th in defensive rating after placing seventh last season. If they don't tighten up there, this Mavs squad won't be able to last in the playoffs.
Bottom line is, a Luka-Booker playoff rematch may be a lot to wish for as things stand right now. In this era of white-hot scriptwriting by the NFL, the NBA should take note from America's most popular league and put some spice into their rigging process. In an era where most players like each other or can at least be cordial, you have to love Luka and Booker going at it like this. Part of the competitive spirit that makes basketball so great and should make this one of the more memorable postseasons in recent memory.
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok