Luka Doncic chirps Pistons assistant while putting 53 points in Mavs win

Luka Don­cic drift­ed toward the Detroit Pis­tons’ bench dur­ing time­outs with 7.1 sec­onds remain­ing in Mon­day night’s 111–105 vic­to­ry for the Dal­las Mavericks.

He said good­bye to Pis­tons assis­tant coach Jerome Allen. The final exchange, cap­ping off a con­ver­sa­tion that had been going on all game long, spilled out with Don­cic bark­ing at each oth­er as he slow­ly retreat­ed to the Dal­las bench.

When the argu­ment was over, Don­cic smiled broad­ly. Scor­ing 53 points in his come­back from a sprained left ankle to lead the Mavs to vic­to­ry, he cer­tain­ly had the last word.

“From the first quar­ter, I was a wreck,” Don­cic said after scor­ing an NBA-best 50 for the fourth time this sea­son. You should know it will return “clink clink”. Since the first quar­ter, we’ve been chat­ting. I don’t want to speak. No prob­lem. It’s bas­ket­ball. I’m sure you’re in a good mood. ”

Don­cic glared at Allen after most of the first quar­ter bas­ket when the Mavs played an offense against the Detroit bench and Don­cic scored 24 points on 7‑of‑8 shoot­ing. Don­cic repeat­ed­ly called out to Allen, who was walk­ing back­wards on defense, like garbage. Along with Dirk Now­itz­ki, Don­cic is now the sec­ond-most scor­er in fran­chise his­to­ry, behind only 60 points in over­time against the New York Knicks on Decem­ber 27.

Pis­tons man­ag­er Dwayne Casey said, “Noth­ing, noth­ing.” “We’ve seen worse things. Remem­ber, I coached Gary Pay­ton and Kevin Gar­nett, so tonight I had zero on the bike. I loved it. But I think that’s how com­pet­i­tive guys should be.Doncic is very competitive.I like him the way he plays and the way he moves and peo­ple react­ed well.He did­n’t flinch. So it’s okay, noth­ing was dirty, it was clean.

“If it’s to get him up and talk­ing to him­self, it’s fine.” But he does­n’t need help. All things con­sid­ered, he’s a great play­er, but that’s the reality. ”

Return­ing after miss­ing a game with an ankle injury, Don­cic played sur­pris­ing­ly effi­cient­ly, going 17/24 from the floor, 5/11 from 3‑point range and 14/18 from 3‑point range. Against the Phoenix Suns on Thurs­day, he was off the injury just 3 min­utes and 21 sec­onds into the game, break­ing the only score­less record of his career.

“Obvi­ous­ly not 100%, but okay,” Don­cic said of his ankle. “Good job”

Max­i­mum 50 points game–under 23 years old.

Luka Don­cic scored his fifth career 50-point game on Mon­day night to tie for sec­ond for a play­er before his 24th birthday.