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Tim McMahon, ESPN staff writer
Luka Doncic polls down the field after receiving the inbounds pass from near his own baseline, and quickly locked eyes with his speedy Dallas star.
There was just over two minutes remaining in the second quarter of the opening game of the NBA Western Conference Finals, and an easy score by Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns pushed the lead to seven points. But Doncic is feeling some fatigue in Wolves guard Anthony Edwards, who exited Game 7 two days ago — and who has been tasked with covering Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving along the right sideline.
After examining the defense, Doncic and Irving immediately exchange a nonverbal message.
He goes.
Starting right from the Wolves bench, Irving accelerates to a full half-court sprint to get one step ahead of Edwards. Meanwhile, on the TNT broadcast, the camera barely cut away from Towns’ bucket before Doncic lofted his long dime over the top of the defense.
Doncic’s pass was off the dribble, from inside his own three-point line, and hit Irving in stride on the opposite end of the floor, leading him to a layup over Wolves forward Kyle Anderson.
Doncic’s elite playmaking helped secure Game 1 and a one-game win for Dallas in the NBA Finals. Meanwhile, his “touchdown passes” were key to the Mavs’ offense turning into a nightly threat at the break.
The fearless 6-foot-7 Doncic, best known for dismantling defenses by dominating the ball, has fully embraced coach Jason Kidd’s preseason mission to become an up-tempo team. As a result, the Mavericks turned one of the slowest offenses of last season into the seventh-fastest offense in the NBA this season.
And no one in the league throws a touchdown pass like Luka.
“That’s something he likes to do so we can get easy scoring opportunities,” Irving told ESPN after the Mavs’ 108-105 Game 1 win over the Wolves.
“He’s like a receiver and a quarterback. He throws perfect passes. They’re literally at your fingertips.”
Doncic seems to be getting the ball first — inbounds passes, completed passes, steals, rebounds — now he instinctively scans the floor for landing opportunities, often with tight windows.
“Obviously I’m not fast enough to push the pace, but my passes are faster than my feet,” Doncic said earlier in the postseason. “I think with my vision, I can make those passes. … I know (my teammates) are.” I’ll be running, so I’m just trying to (find them).
“I think I could be a pretty good quarterback, honestly.”
Kidd finished his work He played his career with 12,091 assists, the second-most in NBA history, many of them from distance and behind half-court. On his way to the Hall of Fame, he perfected the forward look pass in an attempt to speed up his team’s attacks, especially later in his career.
What impresses Kidd about his young protégé is how easily the 25-year-old Doncic can pass the ball from 40, 50, 60 feet and beyond sight.
“With a flick of the wrist,” Kidd told ESPN. “A lot of people have to load the ball and throw it like a quarterback. (It takes) strength.”
Doncic ranks second in the league with 9.8 assists per game this season, but no one has thrown more deep dimes. According to Second Spectrum’s tracking data, 53 of his league-leading assists during the regular season traveled more than 40 feet in the air.
Doncic added nine touchdown passes during the Mavs’ playoff run, trailing only Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton for the most during a postseason.
Serious pressure was necessary to complete Doncic against Derrick Jones Jr. In the Mavs’ Game 2 win over the LA Clippers in the first round. As on Irving’s call, Doncic spotted Jones walking down the court to his right and threw a laser that Clippers two-way star Paul George bet on incorrectly, leading to the win for Jones, the former All-Star.
Doncic lofted the ball over 2017-18 MVP James Harden into Irving’s hands late in the second quarter of the Mavs’ Game 3 win over the Clippers. In that case, Irving initially looked over his right shoulder but adjusted Doncic’s signal, getting into the paint for a layup.
“Luca can throw a frozen rope, or he can throw a rope like a pillow,” Kidd said.
And during the opener against the Wolves last week, Doncic weaved a stunning 50-foot bounce pass through a slew of defenders, which had the Mavs staff impressed with the play for days — despite the fact that Wolves forward Naz Reid hounded Josh Green at the rim to prevent a highlight-reel dunk. .
Doncic’s eyes are Already on the field when he caught an outlet pass from PJ Washington early in Game 5 against Oklahoma City. Doncic sees 7-1 rookie quarterback Derek Lively II, who had intercepted a Josh Jedi layup just seconds earlier, immediately head down the right sideline.
Doncic dribbles — buying his big man some time instead of advancing the ball — and lets the pass fly as he steps over the three-point line into the backcourt. It’s a precise alley, a rainbow alley that falls into Lively’s hands less than two feet from the edge.
Thunder center Chet Holmgren, a 7-1 rim protector who couldn’t run over a fellow rookie from behind on a play, watched from below as Lively finished with a two-handed dunk.
“Whenever I realized how close I was to the rim, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, he really put him on the money,’” Lively told ESPN after that series. “Just having someone with vision like that on the floor is amazing. Whenever you throw it in that perfect way, you should be able to catch it and sink it.”
That ball from Doncic to Lively traveled 61.6 feet through the air, the longest alley-oop playoff in Second Spectrum’s player tracking database (since the 2013-14 season).
This isn’t even Doncic’s longest stretch of the year. One of his 16 assists in a win over the San Antonio Spurs on March 19 was a line drive to Jones that traveled 66.1 feet, ranking second in the database behind only 71.8 dimes from Jokic to Aaron Gordon in October.
0:22
Luka fires a 3/4 pass up the field to set up a Derrick Jones knockdown
Luka Doncic lays the ball down from the free throw line opposite Derek Jones Jr. for an electric slam dunk.
“This is crazy. This is crazy,” Jones recalled of the play.
After Spurs guard Devin Vassell hit a baseline jumper, Doncic spotted the mismatch when he noticed Vassell trailing several steps behind the speedy Jones. When Doncic spotted the inbounds pass, he immediately turned and looked at Jones in the right lane of the floor. Doncic fired a fastball with a chest pass from just behind the free throw line, sailed it over Vassell’s desperate flurry and placed the ball just below the American flag sticker on the corner of the backboard.
“He had to put some heat behind him,” Jones said. “When the ball hit my hand, it fell right through the rim. It was an amazing feeling.”
Jones and the rest of the Mavs have learned to run the ball no matter the circumstances — punts, misses, turnovers — in part because Doncic has been making seemingly impossible passes look simple during Dallas’ run through the Western Conference playoffs.
“With him at this moment, nothing surprises me,” Jones said.
Matt Williams of ESPN Stats & Info contributed to this report.
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