Real Madrid made it two wins in a row as the knocked off Valencia 91-72 in Madrid on December 19th.
For Luka Doncic, it was a very brief affair.
Doncic was ejected from the game after picking up two technical fouls in his six minutes on the court, coming off of the bench.
Here was the first technical as his elbow makes contact with Tibor Pleiss’ face as Doncic goes to make a layup, deemed to be ‘unsportsmanlike’:
Pleiss is left with a fair amount of blood on his face, and you wonder how because, from that angle, it didn’t look like anything.
From another view, though:
Yeah… He gets him pretty good, as it turns out.
So, that was one tech.
The second came after Doncic was demonstrative in his disagreement with a call:
And there you go: how to get tossed in six minutes, led by Luka Doncic.
Prior to his ejection, Doncic scored six points, made two three-pointers, dished out one assist, committed one turnover and came up with two steals.
Though his time on the court was brief, I’ll still treat this as a normal entry, it’ll just be shorter…
Offense
Not much to discuss here, though Doncic did hit two three-pointers (on his two attempts)…
Here, Doncic uses the screen from Felipe Reyes and rises into his first three-pointer:
Nice work by Doncic to position himself…
For his second three, Doncic sizes up Rafa Martinez and hits him with his patented step-back three:
And that was literally it… Again, just six minutes of action so it shouldn’t be surprising…
Playmaking
There was a good bit more to see here in Doncic’s six minutes. Just one assist but he created a number of opportunities…
Off of the pick-and-roll show by Valencia, Doncic finds the rolling Reyes, who draws the foul inside:
Off of another pick-and-roll show, Doncic finds Jonas Maciulis for a three-point attempt but it’s offline:
Off of a turnover, Doncic heads in transition with a half-head of steam, skips past his defender and finds Jeffrey Taylor for an open three-point attempt:
Nice setup by Doncic but Taylor can’t convert on this occasion.
Defense
Nothing to report here…
In closing vs. Valencia…
Obviously a very small sample size for this game…
It was good to see Doncic hit two threes on his two attempts if nothing else…
Doncic created a number of opportunities in his brief time on the floor — a lot more than you would expect in six minutes.
For the T’s themselves… I mean, it happens, but maybe he should’ve realised that he was always playing with fire when voicing his displeasure with the officials with one T already hanging over him…
Graham Chapple 