Film Study: How Luka Doncic's Lack of Participation on Defense Hurts Mavs

While Luka Doncic is one of the NBA's most impactful offensive talents, the Dallas Mavericks need more participation and execution on defense from him.

DALLAS — After playing 41 minutes in his first game back from injury, Luka Doncic displayed a lack of defensive impact that has made executing on defense more difficult for the Dallas Mavericks. It proved especially costly against the Golden State Warriors in a pivotal 127-125 loss, with major standings implications on the line. 

Against the top teams in the NBA, it takes genuine assertiveness to hide an underwhelming defender. There needs to be communication to pre-switch and late-switch plays as they develop, but having a limited array of options due to a lack of activity from that player limits the options. At some point, participation is required, especially without personnel to overcome failing to do so. 

Too often, Doncic will be tasked with the responsibility of being put on the weakest perimeter shooter, with the upside of his contributions defensively being that he can often stand and watch an open look go up, but the shot isn't dropping from that weaker threat on that given day. That's not a viable strategy in the NBA with how many shooting threats there are on a typical team. 

The Mavs are simply a bad defensive team. There isn't a defensive stopper that can take the top assignment and make a meaningful impact. They don't have a rim protector to anchor the unit. They don't have someone to fill the role as the low-man, making timely help rotations and communicating with the rest of the unit to keep things organized, either. Without the ability to cover up underwhelming individual defenders, it requires more from Doncic. 

Right now, Doncic is playing a brand of defense that resembles how the Phoenix Suns were hunting him early in the Western Conference Semifinals last season. The lack of impact resulted in Mavs coach Jason Kidd calling for Doncic to "participate" on defense.

“He’s got to play defense,” Mavs coach Jason Kidd said after the team's Game 2 loss to the Suns in last year's series. “There’s no secret — they’re going to put him in every pick-and-roll. They did the same thing with [Mavericks legend] Dirk [Nowitzki] until Dirk participated and stuck up for himself.

“You can always ask for help, but you’ve got to participate. Luka has done that for us in this journey, and so he’s going to have to do it (Friday night). He’s going have to defend. If they score, they score, but we don’t want it to be on their terms. And the other thing is his teammates have to do a better job helping.”

After being asked about Kidd's comment, Doncic responded, at the time, “I’ve just got to play better defense. That’s it.”

The reality is, Doncic's effort level has reached a concerning point. Even when a player is deemed the weakest threat on the floor like Donte DiVincenzo in a particular lineup, who is shooting 40.0 percent from 3 on the season, Doncic is prone to giving up a wide open look if making a contest requires a hard run out. A successful defense doesn't concede in this way.

Other times, Doncic gets brought into the action with his man being deployed as a ball screener, causing a lot of pressure to be placed on the on-ball defender, and for the rest of the unit to be cognizant of having to over-help. Against a superstar like Stephen Curry, who requires tight on-ball pressure out in space while giving up a drive at times, that's a real problem. 

With the Warriors leading 123-122 with under 10 seconds remaining, the plan was to have Jonathan Kuminga come up to set a ball screen for Curry, given that Doncic would be the big defender in the play. After drawing Maxi Kleber on the switch after Draymond Green's screen prior to Kuminga coming up, Curry had a mismatch guarding the ball and a liability being brought into the action. The end result was a simple ball screen rejection drive into a layup. 

For Doncic, it goes well beyond allowing one of the NBA's best players to score after being brought into the action. He is often a non-factor as a help defender, even when he's filling an important role in the context of a given play, whether it be as the low-man, or when helping the helper. All of those shortcomings happen while often failing to contain dribble penetration. 

Doncic often chooses not to get into the ball when he's attempting in pick-and-roll coverage. In the play below, despite being a guard, instead of staying active after making a switch, he is in a lazy form of drop coverage that leads to Jordan Poole breaking him down off the dribble before getting a mid-range pull-up jumper. 

When Doncic played closer to the level of the screen against Poole, it was easy for him to setup a spin move after drawing contact, resulting in a drive going down the middle of the paint. With JaMychal Green cutting baseline with great timing, Poole dropped it off to him for an easy dunk. It's just too easy to stress the backline of the defense with such little resistance at the point of attack.

Simply having Doncic switch isn't an option, either. Poole made light work of breaking down Doncic out in space before turning the corner to get into the paint. All it took was a between-the-legs dribble into a hesitation, before exploding downhill using a right-to-left crossover. Doncic was shifted, giving up the drive left, and forcing help to rotate from the dunker's spot before an easy layup was given up. 

Later, the Warriors created a wide open 3-point attempt for Anthony Lamb after having him come up to set a ball screen, bringing Doncic into the action. Poole drew both ball screen defenders and dragged them out wide, maximizing the distance that Doncic would need to travel to close out on Lamb, so Doncic just didn't and instead was upset with Maxi Kleber for not leaving the big he was boxing out to go make the closeout.

Some teams like to have their weak-link on defense hedge or at least pressure the guard when defending a ball screen, especially if a player like Curry has the ball. To execute such a sequence effectively, it requires a versatile low-man that has a combination of size, strength, and length to pressure a bigger framed finisher in the paint. This was an area that Dorian Finney-Smith thrived, but after trading him, the Mavs lack such a talent and still don't have a high level rim protector, either.

As shown in the two plays in the video below, by hiding Doncic on the weakest shooter, there are times when it becomes a disadvantage. After Curry drew two defenders, Kuminga had a pair of scoring chances that may have been altered shots had a rim protector or bigger-framed low-man made the rotation. Instead, Kuminga was either scored, or got to the free throw line.

It's hard enough to contain the Warriors' half-court offense with two of the greatest shooters in NBA history. When they start playing out of split action, it creates windows to put a defense through a stress test that will surely result in failure if quick, concise decisions and movements aren't made to recover.

With Curry receiving a screen from Doncic's man, the Warriors know a good look for the game's greatest ever shooter is going to come if the defender trailing Curry isn't in a position to make a very tight contest. It's made all the more simple for Golden State because Doncic is basically serving as a drop coverage big despite being a guard that should be able to offer more resistance. 

When Curry is deployed as a decoy after receiving an off-ball screen, the rest of the unit tends to face an advantage to attack a recovering defense. It's made simpler when there is a defender that isn't going to be assertive in rotating in help like Doncic was in the play below. Jaden Hardy made an aggressive low-man rotation to engage Green after seeing him catch the ball after a cut, leaving a weak-side shooter open for the quick spray-out pass. With the last line of defense being Doncic and a small, rookie guard, the possibilities are mostly concerning.

Generally, there are details throughout games that are genuinely causing when picking apart Doncic's approach to various matchups. Remember how he left Lamb wide open on a late-game pick-and-pop possession? Earlier in the game, he tried to run Lamb off the line, resulting in a spray-out pass to the weak-side corner for a 3-point attempt that Jonathan Kuminga converted. 

The opposition doesn't even have to use a ball screening action to take advantage of Doncic's underwhelming defensive impact. The Warriors deployed his man in an off-ball screening action, creating an advantage for a cut leading to a dropoff pass to a big in the paint. Again, without a fear imposing rim protector to anchor the defense, the backline isn't going to cover these things up. 

At times, there are head-scratching decisions made by Doncic that put the rest of the unit in poor positions to cover him up. After missing a finish attempt, he gets in front of Curry with his back turned, taking himself out of the play. His teammates are forced to worry about the NBA's most lethal shooting threat as he crosses half-court, while nobody accounts for Kuminga on a 45-cut. 

In speaking of Kuminga, he finished off a dunk after making a 45-cut on a half-court play with Doncic over-helping, then being unable to make a meaningful recovery. Despite the cause of this sequence being a simple pass to Kevon Looney on a rim roll with Kleber as the big defender, Doncic still made the help rotation that put him out of position to make an impact. 

During a play that developed to have only Doncic and Lamb in the paint as a 3-point attempt from Curry went up, Doncic just watches the whole flight of the ball until it hits the rim. Nobody is in a position to contain Lamb on the offensive glass as a result. The ball flies off the rim right into Lamb's hands, who completes an and-1 on the putback. Notice the context of the play? The game was tied in the fourth quarter, yet the effort isn't at an acceptable level. 

The Mavs need greater contributions from much of the roster, but it has to start with Doncic. Even when he's racked up with a significant amount of playing time, he has to dig deep and find ways to remain assertive and impactful. The shortcomings he experiences makes it unnecessarily more complicated and taxing on everyone else involved. 

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