LOS ANGELES — The chant started late in the first half on Tuesday night, in the 200 level of the arena. By game’s end, as the Lakers were finally putting away the Dallas Mavericks, it had spread throughout the building.
“Thank you, Nico … thank you, Nico … thank you, Nico …”
It was directed at Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison, who will be known forevermore in north Texas as The Guy Who Traded Away Luka Doncic. Tuesday night, Doncic and the Lakers faced the Mavericks in downtown L.A., and Harrison – who is hardly the most popular man in Dallas these days – faced the music, making this trip with the team and sitting a few rows behind the visitors’ bench.
Let’s just say the first direct returns on this deal favored the Lakers.
Yes, it was emotional, and that might have had an effect. Doncic had a ragged shooting night, making 6 of 17 field goal attempts and 1 for 7 from 3-point range. He wasn’t the only one struggling, on a night when the Lakers shot 11 for 40 (27.5%) from behind the arc and 28 for 47 (59.5%) inside it.
But this was an example of Doncic the complete player. Even with his shot less than trustworthy, he finished with a triple-double – 19 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists – plus three steals and two blocked shots, in his new team’s 107-99 victory over his old one.
Thank you, indeed. And considering this was a national TV game, those chants represented some first-class trolling, given how raw the emotions have been in Dallas.
The game itself might have been an illustration of how these new look Lakers might handle things going forward. The Lakers had a 16-point lead in the first half – about the time those chants began, actually – but found themselves tied 91-91 midway through the fourth quarter before putting on a finishing kick, mainly supplied by LeBron James’ 16-point quarter, to pull away at the end.
“He’s doing that at 40 years old, which is insane,” said Doncic, who turns 26 on Friday.
Starting center Jaxson Hayes played just 16:51. When he went to the bench, the Lakers went small, using 6-foot-7 Dorian Finney-Smith and 6-9 Jarred Vanderbilt alongside 6-8 Rui Hachimura.
What they’ve been doing has been working. Tuesday night’s victory was their 15th in 19 games dating to mid-January. The Lakers have won three in a row and nine of their last 11, all of those without Anthony Davis, who was hurt right before that stretch in a loss in Philadelphia, missed the victories in Washington and New York on that trip and was traded the night of the Lakers’ victory in Madison Square Garden.
The Lakers did honor Davis with a tribute video during the first timeout on Tuesday, a nice touch and one absolutely deserved considering the role Davis played in helping to hang championship banner No. 17 in 2020.
And now for the irony. Doncic was supposedly out of shape and a defensive liability, if you believed the spin Harrison provided in the immediate aftermath of the trade when he publicly denigrated his former player, as did Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont.
But in the six games since Doncic started suiting up for the Lakers (he sat out one of those in Portland last week), their defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) is 105.6. Their rating over the last 15 games (107.3) ties them with Boston and Cleveland at the top of the league in that category.
In the final five minutes of Tuesday’s game, Dallas scored eight points. The Lakers scored 15.
Then again, LeBron might have something to do with that defensive efficiency.
“If you watch our basketball team every night, and you’ve watched our team now for the last six weeks or so, LeBron’s playing at an All-NBA defense level,” Coach JJ Redick said. “He is.
“People may have perceptions of what he is as a defender. I watch it every night. He doesn’t get scored on in isolation if teams do try to target him. He blows plays up. He’s always in the right position, shifting, recovering. I think there was this perception of him at this age, like, conserving energy. No. There’s no conservation of energy on that end of the floor. He’s played elite defense now for a while.”
The crazy thing? Trading Davis to Dallas was supposed to poke another hole in the Lakers’ defensive efficiency. But they seem to have compensated with a more efficient, more aggressive team defensive effort. How far small-ball will take them going forward remains to be seen (worth noting that Dallas played without the 6-10 Davis, the 6-10 Daniel Gafford and 7-1 Dereck Lively II on Tuesday), but they’ve had some impressive efforts to this point.
Doncic, at least, won’t have to worry about old teammates or memories or any of that again until April 9, when the Lakers visit Dallas for their third-to-last regular-season game.
He saw old teammates, greeting Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving – “my mano,” as he called him – just before tipoff as well as Max Christie, who went from L.A. to Dallas in the deal. He did not acknowledge Harrison, even during the pregame warmup period when the Dallas general manager was courtside.
“There were just a lot of emotions (Tuesday night), honestly,” Doncic said. “I can’t even explain. It was a different game. Like I said, sometimes I don’t know what I was doing. I’m just glad it’s over, honestly.”
Both Redick and James thought that Doncic actually handled the emotions of the evening well.
“I mean, obviously a lot of emotion goes in,” James said. “You give so much to a franchise and you sacrifice for a franchise. … He’s grown from being an 18-, 19-year-old kid to now a 25-year-old man, family and all that stuff.
“When you move on or they move on from you, it’s very emotional, obviously. It’s very taxing. You know, it’s a lot of probably a lot of things going on in his head that probably didn’t even involve the game itself. So, with that said, I thought he handled it terrific.”
Any closure, Doncic said, “is going to take a while, I think. I don’t know. It’s just – it’s not ideal. I’m glad this game is over. There was a lot of emotions. It will go little by little. Every day is better.”
Anyway, this is home now. And we have concrete proof that the fans are grateful.
jalexander@scng.com