Luka Doncic Injures Ankle in Mavs’ Loss to Bucks: ‘I Felt a Pop’

To add even more injury to the Dallas Mavericks’ insult, superstar Luka Doncic says he “felt a pop” in his ankle that he’s already sprained multiple times this season.

Dalton Trigg | Feb 4, 2024

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For a team that has endured so many injuries already this season, the last thing the Dallas Mavericks needed was their superstar going down with one on Saturday night against the Milwaukee Bucks.

Unfortunately for the Mavs, Luka Doncic injured his right ankle — the one he’s sprained multiple times already — while being on the floor when Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo fell on top of it. After initially leaving the game and going back to the locker room, Doncic returned to action, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Mavs from blowing a 25-point lead in what ended up being a 129-117 loss.

The freshly-minted five-time All-Star finished with 40 points on 13-26 shooting from the field to go with nine rebounds and 11 assists despite sustaining the ankle injury.

With a vitality important east-coast road trip coming up, the hope is that Doncic won’t have to miss any time, but the fact that he “felt a pop” is concerning.

“It’s the same ankle [I’ve injured before]. I heard it pop,” Doncic said. “It’s pretty strong now, if it was last year, it would’ve been worse. But this year I work on it every day, so it’s stronger. … Yeah it turned like this and then Giannis fell on it. I heard a pop.”

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Doncic finished the game despite having to briefly exit after the injury initially happened — we assume to get it taped — so that’s a good sign for Dallas. That being said, how Doncic’s ankle feels on Sunday, and then heading into Monday when the Mavs will prepare to take on the Philadelphia 76ers, will determine if he’s going to have to miss any time or not.

Kyrie Irving, who has missed six games due to a thumb sprain, could make his return against the 76ers. With just 33 games remaining in the season, the Mavs, who are stuck in the Play-In Tournament range of the Western Conference standings, need all the reinforcements they can get.

Published Feb 4, 2024

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.