Former Mavs teammate goes berserk on Luka Doncic haters, blames supporting cast

A former teammate has come rushing to the defense of Luka Doncic after the Dallas Mavericks superstar has drawn the ire of critics for them being on the brink of being swept out of the 2024 NBA Finals by the Boston Celtics.

Theo Pinson, who played for the Mavericks during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, took to social media to support Doncic with the Mavericks having lost three straight games to the Celtics and Game 4 set for Friday night.

After leading the Mavericks through the first three rounds of the 2024 NBA Playoffs with some exceptional performances, Doncic is falling a bit short of those standards against the Celtics. However, Pinson maintains that the All-Star is not getting enough help from his teammates and also is clearly playing with an injury.

Some current teammates reportedly in the past have pleaded with Doncic to stop whining to the refs, give more effort on defense and be in better shape. Whether such changes can now come in time to help the Mavericks may be unlikely as no NBA team has ever come back to win a best-of-seven series after losing the first three games.

Doncic’s petulant on-court demeanor was on full display in Dallas’ Game 3 loss on Wednesday. No only did he foul out of the crucial contest, he went on to criticize the officials during his postgame comments to the media.

This is all after the 25-year-old was particularly impressive in the 2024 Western Conference Finals victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves. He averaged 32.4 points, 9.6 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game in the five-game victory that put Dallas back in the NBA Finals for the first time since it won the title in 2011.

However, through the first three games against the Celtics, he is averaging just 29.7 points per game, still an impressive number but not quite what he had done in the previous round. With the Mavericks unable to score at least 100 points in any of these games, any drop in his offensive production has proven to be significant.

Perhaps Doncic and the Mavericks can start to turn things around with a Game 4 win and draw some praise for their top player rather than the more recent criticism.