Luka Doncic hysteria spreads across sports world after game-winner ties Mavs-Clippers series
Luka Doncic’s superstardom just hit lightspeed.
The second-year wunderkind led the Dallas Mavericks to a series-tying Game 4 win Sunday afternoon with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer in overtime to beat the Los Angeles Clippers.
We already knew he was special in DFW, but now the basketball world is really taking notice. Especially on social media. Doncic was still trending on Twitter 10 hours after his step-back 3 beat LA 135-133 late Sunday night and into early Monday morning.
All of the sports world was chiming in, either with jaw-dropped plaudits or jaw-dropping statistics, including Doncic’s final line: 43 points, 17 rebounds, and 13 assists. As CBS Sports pointed out, as did others, Doncic is the first player in NBA history with those numbers in a playoff game.
The comparisons to former and current NBA all-time greats have been coming since Doncic impressed in his rookies season. And the comparisons, now that he’s playing in his first NBA playoff series, are hard to ignore when you consider the numbers he’s been putting up. Some of the biggest stars in the game were watching, too, including LeBron James and Steph Curry. James did his best Mike Breen impression to celebrate Doncic’s shot and Curry called the shot “ridiculous” in the most flattering way.
“Don’t try to compare him to others,” Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said on Twitter in a reply to an ESPN post comparing Doncic to Hall of Famer Larry Bird. “He is blazing his own path.”
A look at some of the Luka hysteria from Sunday:
