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Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic animatedly expressed dismay that coach Rick Carlisle failed to use the team’s last timeout on a critical possession in the last minute of a loss to the road 112-109 against the Milwaukee Bucks Friday night.
Possession, which occurred with the Mavs falling behind by two points, ended with Kristaps Porzingis gravely missing a contested 3 point with 10.4 seconds left. After the Mavs took a foul seconds later, Doncic made an angry gesture towards the Dallas bench, repeatedly forming a T with his hands to indicate a timeout should have been called.
On the previous possession, Doncic created an open look on a 3 for Trey Burke by passing out of a double team. Burke missed, but center Willie Cauley-Stein grabbed the offensive rebound 17.7 seconds from time. Doncic didn’t touch the ball for the remainder of possession, as Cauley-Stein passed to Burke, who drove the baseline under the basket and passed to Porzingis on the right wing.
“It’s the manager’s decision, but if we had pulled the shot it would be fine,” said Doncic, who had 29 points, 9 rebounds and 13 assists in the loss, or 61 of the Mavs’ 81 points. when he was on the floor. “… But I don’t know. It’s the coach’s decision to call a time-out or not, so I think that’s good.”
Doncic said he had not yet discussed the situation with Carlisle and declined to say if he intended to have this conversation with his trainer.
“If we talk, we will talk,” Doncic said. “It won’t be in the media. It’s between us.”
Carlisle said he “wouldn’t go into this publicly” when asked to discuss the situation with Doncic. Carlisle didn’t regret his decision not to ask for a timeout on possession, noting how difficult it is to score against the Bucks defense if Milwaukee has a chance to set up.
“Look, we got two good shots and we saved one time out,” Carlisle said. “As a coach, that’s all you can hope for in this situation.”
The miss 3, who didn’t catch the iron and fell off the backboard on the other side of the rim, punctuated a poor shooting performance for Porzingis in his second game of the season after recovering from an offseason operation on the right knee. He finished with 15 points on 6 of 19 shots (2 of 7 at 3 points) in 29 minutes.
“There are things I could have done a lot better, and that could have changed a lot in this game,” said Porzingis, who felt he had rushed his last shot. “I want to take a lot of responsibility for this one.”
Porzingis said he needed to be “calmer” there, acknowledging that he had been too aggressive at times as he tried to find his rhythm.
“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 his confidence that Porzingis would find that balance as he got on his feet after missing the first nine games of the season.
“Put yourself in his shoes,” Carlisle said. “The guy is desperate to help the team. If he wasn’t aggressive I would be a lot more worried.”
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