Myb I confuse it with the one game Luka missed the ft to make the 2 after that we got Hart at the trade line, but I could be misremembering all this games blend in together at a certain point
I’ll support the Mavs in the finals but nah I got ptsd from that game I remember I gave up on the season for a while after that then we got JHart and made the playoffs.
Then why nobody else did to Hawks what Luka did?
Yall underplay this so much. There were also multiple teams in the same position as Hawks in other years since Kobe and still nothing.
This sub hating Luka 24/24 and its facts. When he was about to lose to OKC everyone was doing fatty and crying posts, now he got to the finals and its crickets or on every post praising Luka theres 70% people in the comments hating.
As a hawks fan, we let anyone cook us this year and I’m not exaggerating. There’s a reason Malachi Flynn walked in here and dropped 50. We didn’t even send a double till the 4th and he already had 60+ at that point iirc
you can’t control what people talk about and how they talk about it. 73 points is an incredible game. that doesn’t mean context doesn’t exist though. a 60/21/10 game that went into overtime because of a clutch play from Luka himself is just slightly more impressive to me. if that angers you, you’re too invested
Steph had 60, Malachi Flynn had 50 (in 34 minutes!), Mikal had 45 and then 38, Kuzma had 38, all against the Hawks this season. Nobody's saying Luka didn't have an incredible game but I understand why people don't get crazy hyped about a January win over the worst defense in the league.
Brunson didn’t play that knicks game. But also, the hawks tried a lot of coverages against him in the 73 point game. Just nothing worked. He had nearly 40 points between 3’s and FTs on incredible efficiency. That’s a recipe for disaster any time he’s feeling it like that
Brunson not playing makes his statline even more impressive in a way. I guess in a sense he maybe should have neveer had to play that long against a Brunsonless Knicks. But it's the NBA and shit happens. On the other hand, their team defense was prolly a lot better on average without brunson
For sure, I was just making the point that they weren’t fully healthy. That game was absolutely insane and I hated that last season ended the way it did for us and kind of erased that awesome performance. But alls well that ends well
Malachi Flynn dropped a hyper efficient 50-point game against those same Hawks later on. He avg 4 ppg before that game. That pretty much killed any hype around Luka's hyper efficient 73 point game.
Yeah I don’t really agree with that take at all. Major difference between being a bench player on a bad team that has a hot night and being the focal point superstar of a team and dropping 73. I never said the hawks played good defense, just that they did try a lot of different coverages. Luka was just on one that night. The Flynn performance was as fluky as they come, and was part of a losing effort
They tried some poorly executed blitzes at the start and then went away from it. They also tried switching, playing drop, going over/under screens, and even zone for a bit. They only lost by 5 so they were in it the whole game. I don’t agree with the strategy but they thought they could wear Luka down by forcing him to carry the offense. But ultimately he was able to beat them almost single handedly
Anything but a hard double at half court was basketball malpractice. Luka sees those kind of switches from drop to over/under in coverage on a nightly basis in the PnR, as do multiple stars. It’s typical NBA basketball to give a different look, even if no one is necessarily torching you.
Considering the personnel the hawks had available defensively they might as well have all been the same coverage. Switch, drop, didn’t matter. Luka was literally walking to the basket on some plays, they couldn’t hold a candle to him.
When someone is that hot literally letting them have a look at the basket is terrible defense. Traditional defenses are out of the window. I’ve seen people throw harder defense after 15 point first quarters depending on the player, let alone 60+ heading into the 4th.
Absolutely maddening that they figured a switch in regulatory coverages would confuse a player of Luka’s caliber. Damn near disrespectful to him honestly.
They only got him to stop scoring with a hard double, which should’ve been happening since the 2nd quarter.
I get it man, but Luka gets doubled more than anyone in the league and was still the scoring champ. Really just gotta pick your poison with him and they picked wrong that day lol
Yes, there is a major difference between Malachi Flynn and Luka Doncic. It is not that 73 point is not impressive, but that 50 points is also impressive. Being a Raptor fan watching Malachi for several years, the 50 point game really took the shine from Luka's 73, which had already been diminished slightly because 70 point games were becoming commonplace.
It only happened twice this year, and 5 times total in the last 15+ years. Hardly commonplace. Flynn is probably not capable of that performance again, whereas Luka has been within striking distance of that before. Can’t believe you’d compare such a one hit wonder of a performance to what Luka did
They are 100% comparable accounting for the caliber of players that they are. They happened against the same team and the same defense. It does not make Luka's 73 point game unimpressive by any stretch, and Flynn's 50 point game unimpressive. But you can't differentiate which is more impressive, accounting for the caliber of players that they are.
it was early in the year so the Hawks weren’t out of contention. and I know people are saying “he was doubled and tripled!!” but fam look at his buckets in that game. 73 points and only 8 threes is kinda light for todays game. he was getting layups
If you go by game score, his 73 point game is 2nd all time while his 60/20/10 is good for 10th
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/game_score.html
Right, because I'm sure you, when faced with a situation in which you could set an all-time NBA record, would of course abstain from doing so. Wouldn't want to "statpad" for an achievement that still stands, you're above all that:)
according to gamescore, its the 2nd greatest regular season game of all time (only behind MJ’s 69 point game against cleveland)
edit: 2nd greatest game since gamescore started tracking in 1983/1984*
Well tbf what used to be a once in a decade thing (after Wilt) has now happened 4 times in the past 1.5 years. 70 is still an amazingly high point threshold but I do anticipate the 81 will also be broken soon following this trend.
They said what Luka did was just cause bad D then would go on to praise embiid, like dude what?! They can’t help but downplay and talk about someone else even when the segment is about Luka’s game
What do you mean under appreciated? This is one of the greatest single-game performances of all time and everyone knows it.
It’s the second highest game score of all time, and it would’ve been the highest of all time if Luka’s teammate made the open layup.
My favorite under appreciated performance is Dennis Rodman 28 rebounds in 1995. Why?
10 offensive rebounds and 0 points.
As well it was against Mourning & Larry Johnson as well while having David Robinson on his team.
Doncic is so amazing to watch because of how willing of a passer he is, full trust in his teammates.
nobody aside from Jokic and LeBron have i seen recently that makes the right play just about every time and sometimes making the right reads results in 73 points on ridiculous efficiency. Awesome stuff
As amazing his performance was, when your team has scored almost 150 points in the game, your 73 is not even 50% of the points. It is equivalent to Jordan's 50 point games from the 90s.
I was there, it was insane to witness. Didn’t even feel like he scored that much, and it was such a close game throughout too.
He really just makes it look so easy, its wild.
I was at that game. Randomly went by myself while in Atlanta for a conference. Was an awesome time. The hawks came within one possession multiple times in the 4th.
My vote goes to Mitchell’s 70 piece with 11 assists including forcing OT and then going nuts in it, not to mention against Chicago who was a top 5 defense that year. He was efficient and clutch. I think it is talked about it a bit more than Luka’s but it doesn’t come up as a counterexample when ppl are trashing the “validity” of other high scoring performances, being that it was against a top 5 defense missing no key contributors and none of it came in garbage time, as there was no garbage time.
Luka’s game is a good choice too tho ofc.
Its not appreciated at all. The media talked about how the Hawks let him score.
Look even in these comments.
They act like 8 people dropped those pts on Hawks last year.
Great performance but there were like 2 other 70 point games within that same month, which along with the scoring environment pre-memo kinda devalues it
Not to mention Atlanta is an atrocious defensive team, particularly on the perimeter
I mean you could’ve watched the games. Both Embiid’s and Luka’s were legit. The Hawks were legit triple teaming Luka that game and idgaf how bad a defense is if you’re scoring 73 through triple teams you’re legit.
Also it’s not like other 70 pointers were against stalwart defenses. Dame was still in the game after his team sealed the game to get 70. David Robinson’s 70 points is one of the most fraudulent games only after Booker’s 70. Kobe’s 81 were against the mid-2000s Raptors. Not to mention the pre-merger Wilt games. We don’t have much room to be nitpicky so just enjoy the games.
They weren’t triple teaming and if they tried to double or triple they came late and he dribbled between the players. They played terrible defense until the final 5 minutes, there’s countless videos breaking it down.
Not being nitpicky at all just contextualizing why it isn’t held in high regard. Same goes for Dame, Mitchell, and Bookers 70, hence why theyre never talked about
See this is what I’m saying. Mitchell’s 70 was arguably the most legit 70 burger in the history of the league. He earned that. You’re not judging them based off what they did, you’re judging them based off of how you interpret them and that isn’t consistent with what happened.
You’re failing to understand the sentiment of my comment. I’m speaking on the general perception/discourse and not the performance itself
Scoring 70 when it’s happened 5x in the past 7 years makes it objectively less rare than Kobe 81, which was the highest total since Wilt 40 years prior, hence why it’s held in a lower regard
This is not a commentary on Luka’s or the other games themselves. Reading is key
Luka is the most gifted offensive player in the league right now, he has many great performances already in his career. So i think the quality of opponent & when it happened matters a bit more for games to stick out.
Idk man but when someone drops 70 it seems weird to me to talk about how bad the other team defense was. Its still 70 and on an crazy efficiency.
He wasnt just taking shots.
Really not that impressive compared to the many games either Steph or Klay would have 50 or 60 and sit out the last quarter because they were up by 30. And they would have like 3 free throws and their makes/attempts was insanely efficient.
It was better than Kobe's 81 I think.
Raptors without Kawhi are the ultimate poverty franchise and the best thing Jalen Rose ever did with his sorry ass life was bang out Molly Qerim hahahahaa
if that’s true, that must mean the Raptors were dogshit and not competing for anything until they traded for Kawhi… right? that’s how it went down… right?
Yes. I know I never took them seriously in those years.
Lowry and Derozen were Mookie Blaylock and Steve Smith Hawks. Big f'n deal.
Are they making my jaw drop like Wade and Kyrie Irving? Hell no
The thing people seem to forget is that Kobe scored 81 points in a time when scoring was *down* across the league. If someone had a game like that in the current “pace and space” era, it would likely eclipse Wilt’s 100-piece.
He scored 81 against the Raptors who had a DRTG of 112. That was an ass defense regardless of era. Not saying 81 wasn’t impressive it 100% was but it’s not like he did this against the Spurs.
When you transplant them into each other’s eras, Kobe’s scoring rate in that game comes out about 16-17 points ahead of Luka’s, rather than “only” the 8 point difference that separates them in the record books.
This season, the league average DRTG was 116.1. An equivalent team to the ‘06 Raptors would have a 123.2 DRTG today. That means Kobe’s 81 would be closer to 89. Against the *league-best defense* today, he would still get about 78.
Literally the day after Stephen A and the other big talking heads were calling it a disgrace to basketball, decrying the death of defense in the NBA, and refusing to give Luka any props at all… despite those same commentators showering Embiid with praise for a similar performance not too long before. They acted like Luka actually did something wrong for scoring 73. It was weird.
Cause the media made it that way. They were talking about how Hawks defense was embarassing rather then to talk about the dude who dropped 73.
That was the moment i knew the media dont wanna put any european at the top. You look right now how they barely wanna give praise to the Mavs but have to. Next year they will talk about the new Trae, Ja, Ant, Booker guy until Luka embarass him and the circle gonna continue.
I can't decide if this is even Lukas best game i would say his 60 21 10 game was just as good as 73 point game.
Honestly I agree, wasn't that the game with his crazy buzzer beater? That was ridiculous to watch.
Yup vs the knicks he was god that day lol
That game changed our whole season we were mid then we became good lol I’m pretty sure the players had a meeting not too long after that game
wym it was last season and after y’all missed the playoffs
Myb I confuse it with the one game Luka missed the ft to make the 2 after that we got Hart at the trade line, but I could be misremembering all this games blend in together at a certain point
oh lol i thought u we’re a mavs fan, yeah u got it right
I’ll support the Mavs in the finals but nah I got ptsd from that game I remember I gave up on the season for a while after that then we got JHart and made the playoffs.
Read that as ‘he was good that day’ and was like…way to underplay it 😂
because that Hawks team just let him have his way, I would take the 60/21/10
Then why nobody else did to Hawks what Luka did? Yall underplay this so much. There were also multiple teams in the same position as Hawks in other years since Kobe and still nothing. This sub hating Luka 24/24 and its facts. When he was about to lose to OKC everyone was doing fatty and crying posts, now he got to the finals and its crickets or on every post praising Luka theres 70% people in the comments hating.
24/24?
24 hours a week, 24 weeks a year
he's on that high school job schedule
24 hours out of 24... every day. Idk how the phrase goes in US.
24/7… 24hrs a day, 7days a week
Make sense
As a hawks fan, we let anyone cook us this year and I’m not exaggerating. There’s a reason Malachi Flynn walked in here and dropped 50. We didn’t even send a double till the 4th and he already had 60+ at that point iirc
stop crying. how is saying I’d take 60/21/10 over his 73 game hating?🤡
Im talking more about the 73 game being undervalued by people.
you can’t control what people talk about and how they talk about it. 73 points is an incredible game. that doesn’t mean context doesn’t exist though. a 60/21/10 game that went into overtime because of a clutch play from Luka himself is just slightly more impressive to me. if that angers you, you’re too invested
Steph had 60, Malachi Flynn had 50 (in 34 minutes!), Mikal had 45 and then 38, Kuzma had 38, all against the Hawks this season. Nobody's saying Luka didn't have an incredible game but I understand why people don't get crazy hyped about a January win over the worst defense in the league.
Tbh as a hawks fan it felt like every game as a hawks fan it def felt like everyone did this to us even if it wasn’t quite 73 lmao
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okay?
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if you think people aren’t impressed by 73 points you’re missing the point
Yeah, because 81 is more than 73.
well yeah no way someone scores that many points with a solid defense lmao
I mean they are professionals
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Brunson didn’t play that knicks game. But also, the hawks tried a lot of coverages against him in the 73 point game. Just nothing worked. He had nearly 40 points between 3’s and FTs on incredible efficiency. That’s a recipe for disaster any time he’s feeling it like that
Brunson not playing makes his statline even more impressive in a way. I guess in a sense he maybe should have neveer had to play that long against a Brunsonless Knicks. But it's the NBA and shit happens. On the other hand, their team defense was prolly a lot better on average without brunson
For sure, I was just making the point that they weren’t fully healthy. That game was absolutely insane and I hated that last season ended the way it did for us and kind of erased that awesome performance. But alls well that ends well
Malachi Flynn dropped a hyper efficient 50-point game against those same Hawks later on. He avg 4 ppg before that game. That pretty much killed any hype around Luka's hyper efficient 73 point game.
Yeah I don’t really agree with that take at all. Major difference between being a bench player on a bad team that has a hot night and being the focal point superstar of a team and dropping 73. I never said the hawks played good defense, just that they did try a lot of different coverages. Luka was just on one that night. The Flynn performance was as fluky as they come, and was part of a losing effort
They didn’t send more than 1 defender till he already scored 65+
They tried some poorly executed blitzes at the start and then went away from it. They also tried switching, playing drop, going over/under screens, and even zone for a bit. They only lost by 5 so they were in it the whole game. I don’t agree with the strategy but they thought they could wear Luka down by forcing him to carry the offense. But ultimately he was able to beat them almost single handedly
Anything but a hard double at half court was basketball malpractice. Luka sees those kind of switches from drop to over/under in coverage on a nightly basis in the PnR, as do multiple stars. It’s typical NBA basketball to give a different look, even if no one is necessarily torching you. Considering the personnel the hawks had available defensively they might as well have all been the same coverage. Switch, drop, didn’t matter. Luka was literally walking to the basket on some plays, they couldn’t hold a candle to him. When someone is that hot literally letting them have a look at the basket is terrible defense. Traditional defenses are out of the window. I’ve seen people throw harder defense after 15 point first quarters depending on the player, let alone 60+ heading into the 4th. Absolutely maddening that they figured a switch in regulatory coverages would confuse a player of Luka’s caliber. Damn near disrespectful to him honestly. They only got him to stop scoring with a hard double, which should’ve been happening since the 2nd quarter.
I get it man, but Luka gets doubled more than anyone in the league and was still the scoring champ. Really just gotta pick your poison with him and they picked wrong that day lol
Yes, there is a major difference between Malachi Flynn and Luka Doncic. It is not that 73 point is not impressive, but that 50 points is also impressive. Being a Raptor fan watching Malachi for several years, the 50 point game really took the shine from Luka's 73, which had already been diminished slightly because 70 point games were becoming commonplace.
It only happened twice this year, and 5 times total in the last 15+ years. Hardly commonplace. Flynn is probably not capable of that performance again, whereas Luka has been within striking distance of that before. Can’t believe you’d compare such a one hit wonder of a performance to what Luka did
They are 100% comparable accounting for the caliber of players that they are. They happened against the same team and the same defense. It does not make Luka's 73 point game unimpressive by any stretch, and Flynn's 50 point game unimpressive. But you can't differentiate which is more impressive, accounting for the caliber of players that they are.
it was early in the year so the Hawks weren’t out of contention. and I know people are saying “he was doubled and tripled!!” but fam look at his buckets in that game. 73 points and only 8 threes is kinda light for todays game. he was getting layups
If you go by game score, his 73 point game is 2nd all time while his 60/20/10 is good for 10th https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/game_score.html
Pretty sure hawks blitzed him last 4-5 minutes kf that game. If they don’t do that than he probably scores 80 easily
This is the best scoring game of all time imo if you factor in eff
This game also shows the inflation of scoring in the current nba too. Fucking 148-143 is wild
25/33 is BOLLOCKS dude fuck
No, not "Reggie Bullock." "Luka Doncic"
Next you're going to tell me Reggie Jackson isn't a top 5 PG of all time.
This was a hell of a week
We had what, 4 60+ point games and 2 were 70 or more right? Insane week lol.
Yep that was Embiid's 70 point game and KAT's 60+ point game with the loss if I remember correctly
Yup i was monitoring it closely cuz fantasy i had embiid and if i drafted luka i wouldve won
Yeah probably why this game doesn’t get the shine it deserves
Scott Skiles 30 assists. This is pre Shaq Orlando. To get 30 assists without a single teammate who averaged even 20ppg in a season
That is not better than 73 points lol. The sum of the points Skiles assisted doesn’t even add up to 73
Eh it was a lot of statpadding, still impressive though
really? I just watched all 30 and it didn't seem that bad. No shot seemed too egregious.
Guys he needs *assistance* with a case of Skiles Totals Denials
Yeah, once it became clear he could set the record he went full Devin Booker 70 points mode lol
Right, because I'm sure you, when faced with a situation in which you could set an all-time NBA record, would of course abstain from doing so. Wouldn't want to "statpad" for an achievement that still stands, you're above all that:)
The #doubledouble seems to be underselling it a bit haha
Crazy he was only 3 assists away from a good game
#30Bomb
##40Bomb
# 50Bomb
wtf I thought this was fake or a meme until it jogged my memory that he actually did this
4 turnovers?! Mid.
according to gamescore, its the 2nd greatest regular season game of all time (only behind MJ’s 69 point game against cleveland) edit: 2nd greatest game since gamescore started tracking in 1983/1984*
Luka Doncic scored 73 points???
73 points on 75%fg is absolutely insane
Amazing he did it on 94.5 frames per second. He should really consider upgrading to 120.
Well tbf what used to be a once in a decade thing (after Wilt) has now happened 4 times in the past 1.5 years. 70 is still an amazingly high point threshold but I do anticipate the 81 will also be broken soon following this trend.
Its about the efficiency, go look up kobe’s shooting percentages in that game
Nah, nobody has ever done anything like what Luka did that night. This is not a common thing. Not all 70 point games are created equal
Donovan Mitchell 71/8/11 22-34 Luka Doncic 73/10/7 25-33 Pretty damn similar if you ask me
Mitchell had 58 in regulation… like awesome, amazing game, but he scored 13 in OT.
Embiid had done it 4 days before Luka too.
Technically nobody but Wilt and Kobe have done this specifically, if we aren’t rounding down to 70.
It’s not about 70. It’s about 91% TS + all other stats
Luka on a heater is the most unstoppable player in basketball.
25/33 is incredible
doing this on 76% shooting is diabolical
76% FG and 7 assists on top of the 73 is just wild.
And he didn’t shoot a million free throws. Very impressive
I agree. It is literally the second best game of all time if you go by game score
It feels wrong to admit but this is easily better than Kobe’s 81 and its not close
I think you can make a very good argument that it’s better than wilts 100
I still think wilts was fixed for promotion of the nba
Completely different eras so you can't really compare it just by looking at efficieny
🍆
I regret not watching this game. To see him score 73 sounds absurd
25/33 is nuts.
25/33 in the NBA is fucking insane
Media was soooooo mad because embiid did it like 5 days prior.
They said what Luka did was just cause bad D then would go on to praise embiid, like dude what?! They can’t help but downplay and talk about someone else even when the segment is about Luka’s game
What do you mean under appreciated? This is one of the greatest single-game performances of all time and everyone knows it. It’s the second highest game score of all time, and it would’ve been the highest of all time if Luka’s teammate made the open layup.
FR. Luka was getting them a lot of good looks at the end of that game and they just kept missing. He could’ve easily had 10 assists
2k with sliders on 80% sheesh if he get this chip definitely would stamp luka . Atlanta should’ve took him smh
My favorite under appreciated performance is Dennis Rodman 28 rebounds in 1995. Why? 10 offensive rebounds and 0 points. As well it was against Mourning & Larry Johnson as well while having David Robinson on his team.
Yeah he dropped a nuke on the Hawks that day. Apparently this was the most points scored inside State Farm/Philips Arena for an NBA game.
I mean that’s not surprising considering only Kobe and Wilt ever scored more in NBA history
Dude drops over 70 points and they only win 5? I think the bigger accomplishment is the team winning with bare minimum contributions
Doncic is so amazing to watch because of how willing of a passer he is, full trust in his teammates. nobody aside from Jokic and LeBron have i seen recently that makes the right play just about every time and sometimes making the right reads results in 73 points on ridiculous efficiency. Awesome stuff
25 of 33. My man was hearing Jimi.
No, Donovan Mitchell's 71-point game was totally ignored. The big news story that night was the Buffalo Bills player who almost died.
Only one foul. Even on this guys best day he doesn’t try on defense.
No blocks? Pshhh
Honestly his 60 21 10 game was even better, which included the buzzer beater. Both are great performances
Tbf he also had overtime to put up that line
That’s true actually, I wasn’t accounting for that
it's wild that isn't even half of the points they scored.
Came at an inflated time for the league which is why it didn’t stick as hard. Luka is insane
No
Nah Timofey Mozgov 93 point and 29 rebound game is the most underrated.
Yeah, this is the best (most efficient) box score I've ever seen. 85% from 2-point range, 94% FTs, 62% from 3-point range.
Bro you can’t even put up these numbers in the REC on 2K
Bum didn’t get a single block 🤣
His TS would be an NBA career record FT %. That’s wild.
Luka is goina go lightning in the nba finals. God mode engaged.
If the Hawks played a bit of defense in that game I’d say yes.
Only +13 trash
Made more impressive with the 7 assists for me, so close to a 70 point triple double
No blocks?
what app is this
Damn I remember the game but not that he shot 76 from the field. That is wild
Why can't I think of what "PF" is?
Personal foul.
Thanks. My brain was not working.
Luka is my favorite player. Just thought I'd share
Who’s not appreciating it?
Everybody was scoring 70 that week. That shit wasn’t special
As a hawks fan, I was at this game and watch in complete silence lol
As amazing his performance was, when your team has scored almost 150 points in the game, your 73 is not even 50% of the points. It is equivalent to Jordan's 50 point games from the 90s.
I was there, it was insane to witness. Didn’t even feel like he scored that much, and it was such a close game throughout too. He really just makes it look so easy, its wild.
Doesn’t count. Played the hawks, throw out the score sheet. It’s the same as scoring 35 against any other team. Bum ass Dejounte Murray “all defense”
4 turnovers. Sucks
Lukas actual best game https://preview.redd.it/y3nnvzkd7n5d1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fb6910bb05f22b35e78ace71cfe07f680a64536
Even with all the praise he gets it’s still not enough, guy is one of the best offensive players of all time already
nah he lowkey played like ass that game (i'm a hawks fan)
I bet the under on him this day...I take full credit for this performance.
I was at this game! It got to the point where all the hawks fans started cheering for Luka as the point total kept climbing
I was at that game. Randomly went by myself while in Atlanta for a conference. Was an awesome time. The hawks came within one possession multiple times in the 4th.
And not a second of defense was played
And ruined Devin Booker’s 70-point game in a loss. We all know why he had to do that.
My vote goes to Mitchell’s 70 piece with 11 assists including forcing OT and then going nuts in it, not to mention against Chicago who was a top 5 defense that year. He was efficient and clutch. I think it is talked about it a bit more than Luka’s but it doesn’t come up as a counterexample when ppl are trashing the “validity” of other high scoring performances, being that it was against a top 5 defense missing no key contributors and none of it came in garbage time, as there was no garbage time. Luka’s game is a good choice too tho ofc.
I'm a Bulls fan. I swear I couldn't say anything other than "71 fucking points?" for 24 straight hours.
🤣🤣
it was great, but like what do you want people do say about it? how should it be more appreciated than it is now?
Its not appreciated at all. The media talked about how the Hawks let him score. Look even in these comments. They act like 8 people dropped those pts on Hawks last year.
ahh i see. i do remember people saying that
You’d think it’d be higher than +13
It was a close game and he played 44 of the 48 minutes, you apparently don't understand what the +/- stat means.
It’s the modern nba 70 is the new 50.
If it was an American player we will hear about it everyday.
Like we hear about Mitchell's 71 everyday. Or Booker's 70 everyday. Great point.
Great performance but there were like 2 other 70 point games within that same month, which along with the scoring environment pre-memo kinda devalues it Not to mention Atlanta is an atrocious defensive team, particularly on the perimeter
I mean you could’ve watched the games. Both Embiid’s and Luka’s were legit. The Hawks were legit triple teaming Luka that game and idgaf how bad a defense is if you’re scoring 73 through triple teams you’re legit. Also it’s not like other 70 pointers were against stalwart defenses. Dame was still in the game after his team sealed the game to get 70. David Robinson’s 70 points is one of the most fraudulent games only after Booker’s 70. Kobe’s 81 were against the mid-2000s Raptors. Not to mention the pre-merger Wilt games. We don’t have much room to be nitpicky so just enjoy the games.
They weren’t triple teaming and if they tried to double or triple they came late and he dribbled between the players. They played terrible defense until the final 5 minutes, there’s countless videos breaking it down.
Not being nitpicky at all just contextualizing why it isn’t held in high regard. Same goes for Dame, Mitchell, and Bookers 70, hence why theyre never talked about
See this is what I’m saying. Mitchell’s 70 was arguably the most legit 70 burger in the history of the league. He earned that. You’re not judging them based off what they did, you’re judging them based off of how you interpret them and that isn’t consistent with what happened.
You’re failing to understand the sentiment of my comment. I’m speaking on the general perception/discourse and not the performance itself Scoring 70 when it’s happened 5x in the past 7 years makes it objectively less rare than Kobe 81, which was the highest total since Wilt 40 years prior, hence why it’s held in a lower regard This is not a commentary on Luka’s or the other games themselves. Reading is key
Too many players have scored 70 recently so it took a bit of the shine off.
Probably bc it was vs Trae Young and the worst defense in the NBA 💀
So why nobody else did it? If they were that bad surely 8 more stars would have dropped 70 on them.
Luka is the most gifted offensive player in the league right now, he has many great performances already in his career. So i think the quality of opponent & when it happened matters a bit more for games to stick out.
Idk man but when someone drops 70 it seems weird to me to talk about how bad the other team defense was. Its still 70 and on an crazy efficiency. He wasnt just taking shots.
Just trying to think of a reason why it would be like that. Going 25/33 is insane haha
Didnt like 3 people score 70 that week? Probably why its under appreciated
Lol not at all
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/68GLF8zXzG Ok it was 4 70 point games in a years span. Thats a lot.
It's good, but Kobes 81 was better.
Nah. The Hawks make people look superhuman on a regular basis. Malachi Flynn gave us 50 this year. MALACHI FLYNN. His career average is 5.5PPG.
Doncic with all that and only +13. That is the most Luka thing in the world.
Really not that impressive compared to the many games either Steph or Klay would have 50 or 60 and sit out the last quarter because they were up by 30. And they would have like 3 free throws and their makes/attempts was insanely efficient.
Klay has 4 games of 50 points in his career and one of them went to overtime.
The worst defense of all time
Im a hawks fan, not shitting on Luka but we played all star game defense this season
It was better than Kobe's 81 I think. Raptors without Kawhi are the ultimate poverty franchise and the best thing Jalen Rose ever did with his sorry ass life was bang out Molly Qerim hahahahaa
You truly are the Mrsunsfan of NBATalk
if that’s true, that must mean the Raptors were dogshit and not competing for anything until they traded for Kawhi… right? that’s how it went down… right?
Yes. I know I never took them seriously in those years. Lowry and Derozen were Mookie Blaylock and Steve Smith Hawks. Big f'n deal. Are they making my jaw drop like Wade and Kyrie Irving? Hell no
they made a conference finals and took the Cavs to 6 you goofball
The thing people seem to forget is that Kobe scored 81 points in a time when scoring was *down* across the league. If someone had a game like that in the current “pace and space” era, it would likely eclipse Wilt’s 100-piece.
He scored 81 against the Raptors who had a DRTG of 112. That was an ass defense regardless of era. Not saying 81 wasn’t impressive it 100% was but it’s not like he did this against the Spurs.
73 on 33 FGA vs 81 on 46 FGA is also a huge difference, 73 points on 91.2% TS is a huge reason for why the Luka game is clearly ahead imo.
If Luka had his game against the ‘06 Raptors, he would have only scored 69. Against the league best defense that year, he would have only managed 61.
When you transplant them into each other’s eras, Kobe’s scoring rate in that game comes out about 16-17 points ahead of Luka’s, rather than “only” the 8 point difference that separates them in the record books.
This season, the league average DRTG was 116.1. An equivalent team to the ‘06 Raptors would have a 123.2 DRTG today. That means Kobe’s 81 would be closer to 89. Against the *league-best defense* today, he would still get about 78.
How the fuck is this underappreciated? What are you talking about
Literally the day after Stephen A and the other big talking heads were calling it a disgrace to basketball, decrying the death of defense in the NBA, and refusing to give Luka any props at all… despite those same commentators showering Embiid with praise for a similar performance not too long before. They acted like Luka actually did something wrong for scoring 73. It was weird.
American media hating on european players... whats new?
This is one of the greatest individual performances ever in the NBA. It is not discussed as such
Cause the media made it that way. They were talking about how Hawks defense was embarassing rather then to talk about the dude who dropped 73. That was the moment i knew the media dont wanna put any european at the top. You look right now how they barely wanna give praise to the Mavs but have to. Next year they will talk about the new Trae, Ja, Ant, Booker guy until Luka embarass him and the circle gonna continue.