OKLAHOMA CITY — Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic played in Game 1 despite being on the team's injury report with a right knee injury.
Doncic has been battling a right knee sprain since late April in the Los Angeles Clippers series. He appeared on the official injury report on April 28, where he was listed as questionable for right knee soreness. This was before Game 4, where Doncic posted a 29-10-10 triple double in a loss. Two days later, on April 30, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd revealed Doncic had a right knee sprain.
Doncic played every game in the six-game series against the Clippers despite his right knee injury.
Ahead of Game 1 against the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, Doncic's knee was on the injury report again, but was designated available to play. Early on, Doncic took a tumble and had been hobbling around the court the entire game. When asked about his knee and performance in Game 1, Doncic gave zero room for excuses.
"Who cares, we lost," Doncic said. "We just got to move onto the next one. We’ve got to be better.”
Doncic said OKC is a great defensive team and "it won't be easy at all," so they have to play good, focused basketball for 48 minutes.
Lu Dort got most of the work guarding Doncic, with rookie Cason Wallace getting some of the action and 7-foot-1 center Holmgren pestering him near the rim.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Dort, one of the league's best perimeter defenders did his job.
“He’s just a warrior,” Daigneault said. “Brings the juice every single night. Doncic is a really hard matchup and a great player that didn’t have his best pitch tonight. He’s going to play better than this. Lu made it hard on him. I thought our team made it hard on him.”
Game 2 will be Thursday night in Oklahoma City.
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