DALLAS — Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic had a tough shooting night against the San Antonio Spurs, but a team effort led by significant contributions from Kyrie Irving and Dante Exum was enough to achieve the 112-107 victory.
Doncic still had a triple-double with 18 points, 16 assists, and 10 rebounds but shot 6-27 from the floor (22.2 percent) and 2-12 (16.7 percent) from deep. It was the most missed field goals he'd recorded in a regular season game in his NBA career, and it was just the second time he'd ever missed 20 or more shots in a given performance.
Irving, who scored 28 points and grabbed seven rebounds, praised Doncic's desire to be perfect nightly. Still, he acknowledged that there would naturally be occasional bad shooting performances for him, considering that's the case for any player.
“It's a collective responsibility, Irving said. "We expect a lot of Luka; he expects a lot of himself. The guy is hungry to be perfect every single night, and I admire that. But he’s human, just like the rest of us. And when he’s not able to hit shots that he normally makes, we’ve got to pick him up."
Despite not shooting the ball well, Doncic was still aggressive and masterful in creating high-quality shots for teammates to finish at the rim or get clean shots from beyond the arc. Irving praised Doncic's focused effort to make an impact in such a way considering the circumstances.
"I liked that he was still aggressive," Irving said of Doncic.
Doncic continued to make an impact, particularly in pick-and-roll and aggressive play within the flow of the Mavs' half-court sets, whether he played out of the post or the team was running Horns sets or double drag.
"He still was aggressive in terms of coming off the pick-and-roll and making plays. He had 16 assists tonight [and] 10 rebounds," Irving said of Doncic. "So he was doing all of the little things," Irving explained. "I was just trying to encourage those shots he normally makes."
Irving obviously isn't worried about Doncic's shotmaking going forward, but he takes it as a positive that the rest of the team was able to rally together to win. The Mavs have been the NBA's most successful clutch team in terms of winning percentage this season and managed to grind out another victory.
"They'll go in moving forward," Irving said. "I'm not worried, but it's a true testament to our team, just us being able to galvanize around that kind of going on with Luka and me pushing the pace a bit more, getting other guys involved, and being aggressive."
Doncic's next chance to bounce back in the shooting department will be on Thursday when he plays the Utah Jazz.
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