LOS ANGELES — The Lakers, for the first time in what’s felt like months, couldn’t get Luka Dončić a bucket.
Coming out of a late fourth-quarter timeout, they got Dončić the ball on the low left post, but he got stopped at the rim. The next touch, the Chicago Bulls sent a triple-team, surrounding him and forcing the pass.
“One more?” JJ Redick asked Dončić as he grabbed his shorts at his knees. Dončić nodded and stayed in the game.
The next possession after another double-team forced the ball out of his hands, Dončić looked over to the Lakers’ bench in surrender. His substitute, Jake LaRavia, walked towards the scorer’s table. But with one final chance, Dončić drove at the Chicago defense, forcing Rob Dillingham into a foul and earning himself two free throws.
In a lot of ways, these were the hardest points Luka Dončić scored all night — his nemesis for the night already on the Bulls’ bench having been soundly beaten by the NBA’s leading scorer.
The two free throws were the final tallies on Dončić’s 51-point game that led the Lakers to a 142-130 victory against the over-matched Bulls. In two games against Chicago this season, Dončić has scored 97 total points.
It was Dončić’s highest scoring game as a Laker and his first with at least 50. He’s scored at least 50 seven times in his career.
Dončić scored 12 points in the first quarter, but missed a reverse layup late. After the play, he stayed on the opposing baseline and kicked at the air out of frustration.
“Somebody started talking to me, so that woke me up,” Dončić said.
Asked who, Dončić sarcastically looked at the box score at the podium.
“Matas,” he said was a pause. “Buzelis.”
Dončić’s first bucket in the second quarter was a jumper over Buzelis, scoring 12 points in the final six minutes of the half, trash-talking Buzelis whether he was guarding him, on the bench or waiting to check back into the game. The treatment continued well into the fourth-quarter when Dončić bumped Buzelis all the way out of bounds before scoring on an easy layup.
“Probably not to talk to him,” Buzelis said when asked what he took away from the night.
Both Buzelis and Dončić claimed the other started the trash-talking, officials stepping in between the players at one point in the first half. But history is told by the victors.
“I was surprised. I didn’t say nothing,” Dončić said. “… Yeah. Not very nice. I was surprised.”
“I don’t even know what to say, honestly. He started killing obviously when I started talking to him,” Buzelis said. “I just … I don’t back down from anybody. No matter who you are. And I took on the challenge and didn’t execute.”
Dončić finished with nine made threes, tying a career high. After a slow start shooting from deep to start the season, he’s made 41 percent on 10.5 attempts from three in his last 29 games — a stretch dating back to Jan. 4.
“He’s been high-volume, high-efficiency for about two and a half months now,” Redick said of the shooting. “It’s so important. It just sets up the rest of his game when he’s making threes. And it obviously gives us life.”
Redick has often talked about Dončić’s competitive fire and his ability to focus it on the right things. Thursday, that meant even more than scoring. In addition to the 51, he finished with 10 rebounds, nine assists, three steals, a blocked shot and just one turnover.
It’s the second time in his career he’s scored 50, had at least nine assists and one or fewer turnovers. Only Michael Jordan has done the same multiple times.
Like Jordan, Dončić is always looking for a target to direct his competitive rage, whether it be a courtside fan, an official or, in this case, a 21-year-old wing.
“It’s a unique trait. It’s not just the fact that he responds to a rough play or trash talking. It’s that he can channel it, and he can channel it while still doing all the other things that needs to be done. And that’s obviously reflective in his defensive rebounding, his assists, his steals — again, another game where he gets the high assists number with low turnovers,” Redick said. “He’s playing as well as anybody in the NBA right now. I think that’s, you know, it’s probably not being talked about enough — so I’m going to talk about it.”
Why not? Redick knows just how much Dončić likes to respond to talk. It’s one of the things that makes him special.
“Maybe that’s what made me a little bit good at basketball,” Dončić said with a grin.
— The Athletic‘s Law Murray contributed to this story
