Luka Doncic could not avoid giving credit to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander after Game 4 of the Western Conference semi-finals. To those who might not be aware, the Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder have matched up for the second round of the playoffs.
This has been quite an evenly matched-series so far. Heading into Game 4, the Mavs had a 2-1 lead in this series and could have placed the young Thunder in a 3-1 deficit if they had secured a win. Despite putting up a good fight, the Mavs were unable to defend their homecourt and ended up losing Game 4. After the game had concluded, Luka was interviewed during the postgame interview and asked about SGA.
Luka Doncic reveals that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s scoring in the 4th quarter led OKC to victory
For the first 3 quarters of Game 4, the Dallas Mavericks managed to hold onto the lead and keep the OKC Thunder trailing. However, the Mavs ended up losing momentum in the 4th quarter. Although they played defense well in this game, they were simply unable to stop Shai from scoring.
The OKC Thunder scored 35 points in the 4th quarter and held the Mavs to 27. This tilted the lead significantly as the Mavs ended up losing with a final score of 96-100. After the game was over, Doncic discussed how SGA’s scoring stopped his team from securing victory.
“Yeah I mean he was unbelievable. He kept making shots and maybe at some point we have to send a double team…He’s just too good, very good. But every shot he took, he was contested by PJ and DJ…But he’s very good at that, he works in that a lot. He gets to his spot and then knocks it down.”
While the rest of the OKC Thunder squad is relatively inexperienced and not as great threats on the offensive side of the floor, there is no denying that SGA is on another level. After all, he was a frontrunner to win the MVP award this season.SGA has averaged more than 30 ppg in this series vs the Dallas Mavericks
Although there have been points in this series where the Mavs stars such as Luka Doncic or Kyrie Irving have struggled to score and stay efficient, the same cannot be said about SGA. He has scored more than 30 points in every game of this series. This is with the exception of Game 1 where Shai scored 29 points.
His scoring streak is made more impressive by the fact that Shai-Gilgeous Alexander does not take or make many three-pointers with high volume. Instead, he attacks the paint and has a well-established midrange shot. In order for the Mavs to win Game 5 on the road, they need to find a way to stop SGA from putting up yet another impressive performance.