In his sixth season in the NBA,
Slovenian Luka Doncic
continues to rewrite the books of the most competitive basketball league on the planet: this Friday
he became the fourth player
in the 78-year history of this competition
to score at least 73 points
, mark that he achieved in the 148-143 victory as a visitor for his team, Dallas Mavericks, over the Atlanta Hawks.
These 73 points place Doncic only behind two NBA giants:
Wilt Chamberlain
, who scored 100 points on March 2, 1962 in a 169-147 victory for the Philadelphia Warriors over the New York Knicks and also scored 78 on December 8, 1961 in a 151-147 loss for his team against the Los Angeles Lakers, and
Kobe Bryant
, who signed 81 on January 22, 2006 in a 122-104 victory for the Lakers over the Toronto Raptors.
Precisely Friday marked the fourth anniversary of the death in a helicopter accident of Bryant, Doncic's childhood idol.
“We all loved Kobe.
"It feels special to be in the conversation with those names
," said the Slovenian after the game in which he scored his 73 points, the same amount that Chamberlain had achieved twice in 1962 and that
David Thompson
had also achieved (on April 9, 1978). , in a 139-137 loss for the Denver Nuggets, his team, against the Detroit Pistons).
The point guard, born 24 years ago in Ljubljana,
also shattered the Mavericks franchise record
that he had held since December 27, 2022, when he had scored 60 in a 126-121 victory over the New York Knicks.
This Friday,
the European finished with another brilliant performance:
he hit 25 of his 33 field goals (75.7%), converted 8 of his 13 three-point attempts (61.5%) and barely missed one of his 16 shots. free that he had in his hands (93.7%).
As if that were not enough, he added 10 rebounds and 7 assists to his score in 45 minutes of play at State Farm in Atlanta.
HISTORIC 73-POINT NIGHT FROM LUKA DONCIC 🤯
🔥 73 PTS
🔥 25/33 FGM (75.8%)
🔥 15/16 FTM
🔥 8 3PM
He becomes the 4th player in NBA history to score 73+ points and the first ever to score 70+ on 75% or higher from the field.
pic.twitter.com/Afm9cyJung
— NBA (@NBA) January 27, 2024
“I felt like maybe it would be a special night after scoring 41 points in the first half, but you never know. Sometimes you feel very good, other times you don't. "Today in the warm-up I had missed a lot of shots
," said the figure of the Mavericks, who came into this match with an adverse streak on the back of three consecutive defeats and without another of their figures, Kyrie Irving.
“We've been struggling lately.
Our mentality was to get a victory
,” stressed the former Real Madrid player.
Doncic's feat was not the only one on Friday.
In a game that was played simultaneously,
Devin Booker scored 62 points
in the Phoenix Suns' 133-131 loss to the Indiana Pacers, which featured Pascal Siakam (31 points).
This record is not the highest of Booker's career, since in 2017 he had scored 70 points against the Boston Celtics.
Tonight, we witnessed HISTORY 🪄 #MFFL pic.twitter.com/dY5qZw44zm
— Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) January 27, 2024
Doncic and Booker are the fifth pair of players to surpass 60 points in the same night and the second to do so this week, since on Monday
Joel Embiid
(Philadelphia 76ers) and
Karl-Anthony Towns
(Minnesota Timberwolves) had reached the 70 and 62 points respectively.
As on other occasions, Doncic jumped onto the Hawks court with extra motivation, the franchise that chose him number three in the 2018 Draft and immediately afterwards traded him to Dallas in exchange for another point guard, Trae Young, and a pick. first round.
Young had a good performance on Friday, with 30 points in his return after two games sidelined due to a concussion.
pic.twitter.com/ij0PpNDMou
— Luka Doncic (@luka7doncic) January 27, 2024
Doncic, who will participate in the NBA All-Star Game for the fifth time in February, already had 41 points at the end of the first half of the game and then remained effective to prevent the Hawks from completing their comeback attempt in the fourth quarter. .
Thus,
he joined the select group of 10 players who reached at least 70 points
, four of whom achieved it in the last year: in addition to him, Embiid, Donovan Mitchell (71) and Damian Lillard (71) did so.
“What Luka does on the court is different from what anyone else does
,” said Mavericks coach Jason Kidd, who flatly rejected Doncic's records affecting the team's strategy.
“He's the game plan
,” Kidd assumed.