LOS ANGELES — As the NBA’s leading scorer and one of the few players who can make an argument as the best player on the planet, Luka Dončić doesn’t need anyone to inspire him to be great.
Luka’s drive is what makes him such a force of nature and a fierce competitor. When it’s being used for good, he dominates opponents and leads his team to victory. And, at times, it works against him, and he gets technical fouls for saying the wrong thing in the heat of the battle.
In the Lakers’ 142-130 win against
the Bulls, we saw the best aspects of his competitive fire, and it came from an unlikely place: Bulls forward Matas Buzelis.
During the second quarter, unprompted, Buzelis decided to start trash-talking Luka.
The moment surprised Luka, but once he took in what was said, Dončić borrowed a page from Michael Jordan’s book and took it personally.
“I’m not going to say what he said, but if I would’ve said that, I would definitely get a tech,” Luka said postgame. “But really, these games, sometimes you’re going easy and we kind of went easy in the first quarter, then he woke me up.”
Luka knocked down a 3-pointer over Buzelis shortly after his remarks. Upon releasing the shot, Dončić smiled manically and added some words to his actions.
The officials talked to both players and calmed the situation down, but the damage had already been done. Luka was fully engaged and seeing red.
Luka tormented Chicago the rest of the night with a buffet of buckets. Dončić scored on long twos, hit eight of nine from the charity stripe, and knocked down nine 3-pointers. It was just Luka’s scoring that was elite, he dominated the defensive glass with 10 boards and had a team-high nine assists.
When it was all said and done, he had 51 points, making this the first time he hit the half-century mark as a Laker.
As he was being subbed out of the contest during the closing seconds, the Lakers showered him with praise for his efforts. LeBron James was encouraging fans to get loud, and they responded by chanting “MVP” as Dončić walked off the floor.
After the game, head coach JJ Redick took a moment to commend his superstar for finding a way to turn this moment into a peak performance.
“It’s not just the fact that he responds to a rough play or trash talking, it’s that he can channel it,” Redick said. “And he can channel it while still doing all the other things that needs to be done. And that’s obviously reflected in his defensive rebounding, his assists, his steals. Again, another game where he gets the high assist number with low turnovers. He’s playing as well as anybody in the NBA right now.”
With the Lakers playing against the Bulls without Jaxson Hayes, Maxi Kleber and Marcus Smart, Luka’s gaudy numbers weren’t just welcomed, but necessary.
Los Angeles is fighting for playoff positioning, and even games that seem like easy wins on paper have to be played with a certain level of seriousness and urgency.
Luka upped his backcourt production with the frontcourt depth missing, and it led to LA’s fourth consecutive win, placing them as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference with 16 games to go.
Nights like these are a reminder that Luka is a superstar player and whatever weaknesses and gripes one might have with his game, the good far outweighs the bad. And when he gets hot, he is one of the most electrifying players to ever step on a basketball court.
And as for Buzelis, he revealed the key takeaway he had from this experience after the game.
“Probably not to talk to him.”
Good idea, Buzelis, good idea.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
