Dončić scores 45 points, leads Lakers to 112-97 victory over Mavs

Luka Dončić put on a dominant performance against his former team Wednesday night. But the Dallas Mavericks still were able to celebrate a bit.

In his first game at American Airlines Center since the Mavs traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers on Feb. 2, Dončić looked like Superman as he flew through the sky with the greatest of ease and poured in 45 points, grabbed eight rebounds, distributed six assists and picked up four steals in leading his new team to a 112-97 triumph over the Mavs. Despite the loss, the Mavs clinched a spot in the NBA’s play-in tournament against the Sacramento Kings — thanks to Oklahoma City’s 125-112 victory over the Phoenix Suns.

After crying during an emotional pre-game tribute video for him that was shown on the overhead Jumbotron, Dončić finished his epic night shooting 16-of-28 from the field and 7-of-10 from three-point land. He was wheeling and dealing and apparently there was nothing the Mavs could do about it.

“He got it going,” Mavs coach Jason Kidd said. “He made the layups, he made the threes, and so whenever he gets going like that it’s tough.

“You try to take the others away, but he was really good tonight.”

The Mavs traded Dončić, Markieff Morris and Maxi Kleber to the Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round draft pick. On Wednesday, with so many fans in the arena cheering for him, Dončić was locked and loaded and put on the type of eye-popping performance he used to do for the Mavs on a regular basis ever since they acquired him in a draft-day trade with the Atlanta Hawks in 2018.

“The fans were great, the tribute (video) was great, Luka’s performance was great, it was great,” Kidd said. “That’s who Luka is.

“I said that when he was with the Mavs. He’s one of the best players in the world and he displayed that again tonight.”

With Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Baltimore Ravens running back Dereck Henry among the dignitaries on hand, Dončić was in a groove from the jump. After scoring 14 of the Lakers’ 26 points in the first quarter, he got in such a zone that by halftime he had over half of the Lakers’ 60 points.

Firing in buckets from all over a court he’s very familiar with, Dončić was 11-of-16 from the field in the first half – and 6-of-8 from downtown – for a whopping 31 points in leading his team to a 60-57 lead. The Mavs tried a number of defenders, but to no avail.

“He’s a generational talent,” said Davis, who collected 13 points, 11 rebounds and six assists. “He’s a great player. I think we did a good job of making him take tough shots, but he’s able to make tough shots. Hats off to him. He played a great game.”

The loss left the Mavs with a 38-42 record going into Friday’s regular season home finale against the Toronto Raptors. And thanks to Denver’s 124-116 win over Sacramento on Wednesday, the Mavs still have a chance to host the play-in game against the Kings.

Meanwhile, the Lakers improved to 49-31 on the season.

The Mavs actually out-shot the Lakers from the field (50 percent to 46.7 percent) and from the three-point line (34.6 percent to 33.3 percent). But the 20 turnovers the Mavs committed – which led to 25 points for the Lakers — certainly didn’t help their cause.

“We got to take care of the ball,” said Naji Marshall, who collected 23 points and eight assists. “If we take care of the ball we can get good shots or any shot that we want. It’s something we definitely have to correct, but we’ll be alright.”

Despite 38 points from Dončić through the first three quarters, the Mavs held an 87-85 lead with 8:58 remaining in the game after Christie had a steal and fed Klay Thompson for a three-pointer that put the finishing touches on a 22-7 run by Dallas.

However, LeBron James scored five consecutive points. Later on, Dončić assisted on a bucket to James, and then followed that up by somehow dropping in a high arching incredible under-handed circus shot to put the Lakers ahead, 105-93.

Dončić added another three-pointer and a short jumper, then left the game for good via cheers from the partisan crowd with 1:34 left.

“That’s what those two guys can do – take over games whenever they feel like they need to,” Marshall said, referring to Doncic and James. “Shout out to the Lakers. They did their job and got the win.”

Davis converted 5-of-13 shots but was often crowded by a bunch of Lakers whenever the ball came his way.

“Anytime I caught it they were sending two guys, sometimes three,” Davis said. “We just got to clean that up and try to get guys to flash and take advantage of it if they’re trying to front the post or have somebody tilting on the backside.”

Other than Marshall and Davis, P.J. Washington finished with 14 points and five rebounds for the Mavs, Christie had 11 points, and Daniel Gafford added 10 points, six rebounds and two blocks.  Besides Dončić, the Lakers got 27 points and seven rebounds from James, 15 points from Rui Hachimura, and 11 points from Austin Reaves.

Asked by an ESPN reporter if he regrets the organization’s decision to give up Dončić after the performance Dončić had on Wednesday, Kidd said: “I have a job to do and that’s to coach the players that are in that locker room. I don’t do the groceries.

“The guys in that locker room, I’ve got to put them in a better position to win. I just didn’t do that tonight.”

The game had a playoff-type feel to it, and the Mavs had multiple chances to come out on top. However, James’ 13 fourth-quarter points stymied any rallies by the Mavs.

“He did the same thing in LA,” Kidd said. “We thought we were back in the game – actually we took the lead – and then all of a sudden he appears.

“So, when you focus so much on Luka, he (James) took advantage of it and he knows how to do that. He’s played this game for a couple of years and so he understands when to go and he went at the right time and there was nothing that we could do.”

There was no denying this was Luka’s night, though.

“We put ourselves at home against a hot team, and we just couldn’t execute offensively, and then we couldn’t get stops on the other end,” Kidd said. “That’s just something that we have to go back and we’ll look at as we get healthy and guys start to play more minutes and get used to each other.

“We’re not that far off. With all the injuries and everything that we’ve been through, we gave a very good team a fight and we just came up short.”

Still, if the Mavs defeat Toronto on Friday and win in Memphis on Sunday – along with Sacramento losing their remaining two games at home against the Los Angeles Clippers and Phoenix Suns – the Mavs will host a playoff play-in game against the Kings on April 16. But if the Kings win one of their remaining two games – or the Mavs lose one of their remaining two – the Mavs-Kings play-in game will be in Sacramento.

“We have two games left to get things going in the right direction before we play Sacramento, so that’s all I’m going to worry about,” Kidd said. “This game is over. There’s nothing we can do. (Dončić) is not coming back as a Mav. He’s with the Lakers, so we have to move forward. And that’s what we’ve done.”

X: @DwainPrice