About Last Night

About Last Night: Luka Doncic's moment

Mavs rookie arrives, Blazers backcourt closes, and a new degree of Boston dominance

Matt Petersen, NBA.com

Where were you when Luka Doncic step-backed his way into the league’s forefront of memorable closers?

Hopefully watching. If you weren’t, you may have seen something come across one of your social media timelines. The Slovenian sensation produced all manner of emotions, emojis and omg’s while seizing the spotlight and the win for Dallas over Houston on Saturday night.

There was no sign of Doncic’s moment before it was already happening. With three minutes remaining, the third overall pick was mired in a 3-for-13 shooting night, with three turnovers to just one assist.

Ball movement opened up an easy corner 3 to pull Dallas within five. Forty four seconds later, Doncic rhythm-dribbled into a step-back triple over Clint Capela.

Another 40-ish seconds later, the 19-year-old kept the defense guessing and drove to the basket. Tie game.

Finally, Doncic got Capela to switch on him again. The former Euroleague MVP pulled off his most ambitious dribble-step-back sequence yet — and canned the go-ahead 3.

In under two minutes, the score was Doncic 11, Rockets 0.

Mavs fans roared. Social media erupted. The arena serenaded their beloved Slovenian with a well-earned verse of HalleLuka.

Not that Doncic minds. That’s his song, now. And Saturday night was his night.

LeBron’s gift

Amid the never-ending attention of millions of fans, LeBron James sees the smallest detail. That includes fans and, in this case, even employees on the road. The Lakers’ superstar admitted after L.A.’s 111-88 rout over Memphis that he had noticed one Grizzlies ball girl wearing his shoes every time he had played there.

James finally felt compelled to add his own set to the woman’s collection.

“Every year I’ve come here, she’s always worn a very exclusive pair of my shoes,” James said. “I’ve always noticed it and I’ve never said anything to her.”

Blazers bros.

This is Year Six of the Lillard-McCollum show in Portland. What happened at the end of Portland’s 113-105 win over Minnesota explains why reboots are so popular.

First, Lillard hit a trademark 3-pointer to give Portland the lead.

Then McCollum took a Lillard pass and hit the go-ahead triple.

The Western Conference will settle into some discernible pecking order at some point. When it does, the Blazers’ familiar formula could be enough to set them above the majority of the pack.

Boston bombshell

The Celtics won on Saturday. By a lot. By more points than any of their storied predecessors.

Boston led Chicago 35-17 after the first quarter. By the end of the third, the Celtics’ lead was 33.

Garbage time offered no relief for the Bulls. By the time it was over, Boston was the owner of a 56-point win — a franchise record and tied for the largest margin of victory on the road in NBA history (Seattle also beat Houston by 56 in 1986).

The star of the game? Daniel Theis, who registered 22 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and four blocks in his first start of the season.

Wade’s millennium

Dwyane Wade logged at least one more milestone during his swan song season.

Already a 12-time All-Star, three-time NBA champion and Olympic gold medalist, Wade joined yet more exclusive company on Saturday when he played in his 1,000th career regular season game. The fifth overall pick from the 2003 Draft joins just 14 other active players who have logged at least that many games, and becomes the 130th overall in NBA history.

Of those 1,000 games, Wade has played 894 of them in a Heat jersey. In Game No. 1, he started alongside Eddie Jones, Brian Grant, Udonis Haslem and Lamar Odom.

Here’s a quick then-now:

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