MIAMI (AP) — Luka Doncic stepped to the free throw line in the final seconds and couldn’t help but hear the crowd chanting over and over again.
MVP slogan.
On the road, no less.
“I think every player wants to hear it,” Doncic said. “I got a lot of goosebumps, so it was pretty special.”
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NBA scoring leader Luka Doncic had the best game of his life, scoring a 60-point masterpiece to help the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Miami Heat 134-126, and the cheers in Miami were certainly justified.
He now leads Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in scoring by 1.9 points, averaging 37.2 points per game in March and 35.1 points per game since the All-Star break. It’s no coincidence that he’s hitting his best strides and the Lakers, now riding an eight-game winning streak, are doing the same thing.
“It turned into unbelievable shooting, drawing fouls and stuff like that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We probably weren’t aggressive enough to take the ball away from him… We didn’t do enough to keep him at least a little bit off-balance.”
Doncic’s final numbers Thursday night, on the same court where Miami’s Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against the Wizards earlier this month: 18-for-30 from the field, 9-for-17 from 3-point range, 15-for-19 from the free throw line, seven rebounds and five steals. Oh, and it should be noted that it was the second night of a back-to-back, with the Lakers playing in Houston on Wednesday and not arriving at their hotel in Miami until 5:10 a.m. Thursday.
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“This was a superhero performance,” Lakers coach J.J. Redick said.
That tied Doncic’s second-most points in a single game behind his 73 points against Atlanta in 2024 and 60 points against New York in 2022 – both of which were achieved while the Slovenian superstar was playing for Dallas.
Doncic also broke the Heat’s opponent scoring record, surpassing James Harden’s 58 points for Houston on February 28, 2019.
Coaches always cheer for their players in award games, and rightly so. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Redick thinks Doncic should win the MVP. But he’s been openly wondering why Doncic — who has never finished third in MVP voting — isn’t talked about more this season as a top, if not top, contender.
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That was before Doncic scored 60 points on Thursday.
“I think he’s as good as anybody in basketball,” Redick said. “He’s really elevated his own performance in very important moments for our team. He’s elevated his teammates’ performances… He’s one of the best players out there and should be in the ‘M’ word conversation. Hopefully people will start talking about that because he’s having a great season like everyone else.”
BetMGM Sportsbook lists Doncic as its second choice in the NBA race, but well behind last year’s winner Gilgeous-Alexander.
Doncic’s night in Miami was so good that it overshadowed another record for LeBron James, who tied Robert Parish’s NBA games record with a 19-point, 15-rebound, 10-assist triple-double.
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James was surprised by Doncic’s effortless 60-point performance.
“He wasn’t even trying to force his way to get it,” James said. “I mean, everything just clicked. Once he got hot in the third quarter, obviously with the red on his hands, he kept it going and then made some great plays for us in the fourth quarter. … Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.”
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