I’m still trying to process why Luka Doncic passed up an open game winner
The setup was perfect. Orlando hits a prayer Wendell Carter Jr. putback to go up 110-109 with six seconds left, Lakers call timeout, advance the ball, and draw up a play to get Luka Doncic a clean look.
This is the entire reason you make the trade. Big moments, big players, big shots. Luka Doncic has done it before. This was supposed to be the moment.
Then he passed it to LeBron.
Weird: Luka Doncic passes up wide open look at the buzzer
I had to watch it three or four times just to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. Luka had a clean look. Not a contested, off-balance, heave-and-pray look. A real look. that he voluntarily gave it up.
I genuinely cannot think of another time in his career where he has done that. If anything, the knock on Luka has always been the opposite — that he takes too many shots, that he dominates the ball, that he sometimes overdoes it. And now this.
LeBron James has spent his entire career making sure the ball finds its way back to him in big moments. The man has never exactly been shy about wanting the rock. So in theory, Luka deferring to LeBron should have been the greatest thing that has ever happened to LeBron James.
A younger co-star, in a clean game-winning situation, willingly handing it over? That’s basically his dream scenario. You’d think he’d be thrilled.
Except even LeBron had no idea why Luka passed him the ball. “I thought he had a good look… I was kinda off balance when he gave it to me.”
That is LeBron James, the guy who has wanted the ball in the fourth quarter since 2003, telling you he did not want the ball in that moment.
That is how strange this was. When LeBron is confused about why someone passed him a game winner, you have officially entered uncharted territory.
LeBron James was also confused…
Once Luka pulled up and dumped it, you already knew what was coming. LeBron catching a grenade with no runway is not a winning formula regardless of who he is or what he has done.
Luka owned it after the game, which is the only thing you can really do when the entire planet just watched you not take an open game winner. But owning it after the fact and actually taking the shot are two very different things, and only one of them matters in the moment.
At the very least, Luka Doncic owned up to it postgame:
If Luka Doncic takes that shot and bricks it off the side of the backboard, fine. Guys miss game winners. It happens, you move on, nobody makes it a referendum on anything.
The shot going in or not going in is almost beside the point. What you cannot do, what is simply not acceptable for the guy who is supposed to be The Guy, is pass it up entirely. That is not what rising to the occasion looks like.
The Lakers gave up a lot to get Luka precisely because they needed someone who could be the closer when LeBron can no longer be. LeBron is 40 years old.
He is still remarkable, but you cannot keep running end-of-game situations through him indefinitely. At some point Luka has to be the one, and last night was supposed to be that moment.
Two brutal games in a row for LA. Got the belt handed to them by the Celtics on Sunday, and now this. Rough stretch. Hopefully for their sake it is just a rough stretch and not something bigger.
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