The Charlotte Hornets look to continue their success Wednesday night against the Dallas Mavericks. Here are three keys to their success.
Key #1: Take the game out of Luka Dončić’s Hands
Luka Dončić has been one of the premier players in the NBA since his arrival only three short years ago. When Dončić’s name was first mentioned, it was hard to see why the Dallas Mavericks would pick him at number three overall. Everyone likes to say that they knew Dončić would be an elite player in the NBA, but hindsight is always 20/20, so of course, they thought that, right? Wrong. People like to be right, even when they were wrong.
For one, Luka Dončić was an overseas player, and while our world has never been smaller (Thanks to social media), there are still a lot of big “IF’s” when it comes to drafting an overseas player. These “IF’s” are things like, “what IF he doesn’t compete as well against NBA talent?”, “what IF he doesn’t like it in the United States?”, “What IF the lights are too bright for him?”. All of these questions are viable.
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However, so far in his short three years, these fears have not come true, and he has been everything Mark Cuban could have dreamed of. He’s a tall guard/forward, standing at 6’7″ with great ball-handling skills and can shoot the lights out when he’s hot. The lights of Dallas are definitely not too bright for Luka Dončić.
For his career thus far, Luka Dončić averages 24.8 points per game. Not bad for a 21-year-old kid. He also has a 44.5% field goal percentage, and he has a player efficiency rating of 23.4. The league average is 15. He has already been voted an NBA All-Star, he was elected All-NBA for the 2019-2020 season, and for good measure, he won Rookie of the Year for the 2018-2019 season.
If the Hornets can hold Dončić to an average or slightly below average game, they have a great shot to win. If I were Coach Borrego, I would do anything in my power to shut him down. The Hornets may have to run a zone defense, or a man on man, even still they may have to run a box-and-one defense. Whatever they have to do to slow Dončić down, is what they should do.
This also may require to switch up the game plan if things are starting to go downhill in a hurry. Maybe they need to put Miles Bridges on him. He’s quick, big-bodied, and can bully Dončić a little bit. Whoever Coach Borrego puts on him, they better be ready to leave it all on the court.
The Mavericks as a whole haven’t been that impressive. They dropped their first two games of the season, and while they blew the LA Clippers off of the court, they did this to a team that is without their best player, Kawhi Leonard. Luka Dončić leads the team in points, assists, and rebounds, so essentially if you stop him, you stop the Mavericks.