Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic was quick to express his dismay at coach Rick Carlisle for not using the team’s final downtime during a critical last-minute possession of a road loss to 112-109 at the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night.
Possession, which came with the Mavs behind by two points, ended with Kristaps Porzingis severely missing a 3-point dispute with 10.4 seconds left. After the Mavs took a foul a few seconds later, Doncic made an angry gesture toward the Dallas bench, repeatedly forming a T with his hands to indicate that a timeout should have been called up.
In the previous possession, Doncic created an open look at a 3 for Trey Burke passing from a double team. Burke missed, but center Willie Cauley-Stein grabbed the offensive rebound with 17.7 seconds left. Doncic did not touch the ball the rest of the possession, as Cauley-Stein delivered to Burke, who drove the baseline under the basket and passed to Porzingis on the right.
“It’s the coach’s decision, but if we had thrown everything would be fine,” said Doncic, who had 29 points, 9 rebounds and 13 assists in the loss, which accounted for 61 of the Mavs ’81 points when he was on the ground. “… But I don’t know. It’s the coach’s decision to call a timeout or not, so I think it’s good.”
Doncic said he had not yet discussed the situation with Carlisle and declined to say whether he intended to hold that conversation with his coach.
“If we talk, we’ll talk,” Doncic said. “It won’t happen in the media. It’s between us.”
Carlisle said he “would not go into this publicly” when asked about discussing the situation with Doncic. Carlisle was not saddened by his decision not to call a time-out on possession, noting how difficult it is to score against the Bucks defense if Milwaukee has a chance to get the set.
“Look, we got two good shots and saved some downtime,” Carlisle said. “As a coach, that’s all you can expect in this situation.”
The lost 3, who did not catch iron and caromed from the board on the other side of the edge, scored a poor shooting performance for Porzingis in his second game of the season after recovering from surgery. off-season on the right knee. He finished with 15 points on a 6-of-19 shot (2 of 7 away from 3-pointers) in 29 minutes.
“There are things he could have done much better, and that could have changed a lot in this game,” said Porzingis, who felt he rushed his last shot. “I want to take a lot of responsibility for this.”
Porzingis said he needs to be “calmer” out there, and acknowledged that he has sometimes been too aggressive as he tries to find his pace.
“There has to be a balance,” Porzingis said. “You want to be aggressive, but you want to be aggressive in situations and positions that you’re comfortable with. You don’t always want to look for it.”
Carlisle expressed confidence that Porzingis would find that balance as he stood up after losing the first nine games of the season.
“Put yourself in their shoes,” Carlisle said. “The guy desperately wants to help the team. If he wasn’t aggressive, I would worry a lot more.”