Luka Dončić is living in the moment.
And his Dallas Mavericks are now just two wins away from the NBA Finals.
Sometimes, the simplest explanations are the easiest.
And in the case of Luka Dončić, his coach, Jason Kidd perhaps put it most succinctly in the wake of the Dallas Mavericks literal-last-second win, 109-108, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday night.
“As you’ve seen with Luka, he loves that stage. He doesn’t run from it”
It was Dončić at his best, with a final line of 32/13/10, his fifth triple-double of these 2024 playoffs - even if, like everyone at this time of the year, he isn’t fully healthy. Injured with what the Mavericks have listed as a right knee sprain and ankle soreness.
Battling through it however, is the stuff playoff dreams are made of.
He hit the go-ahead three over Rudy Gobert, with just three seconds left on the clock, the sequence, perfectly encapsulating the combination of everything that makes Dončić, today, one of the very best basketball players on the planet.
The handles, the range, the footwork, the strength to establish and maintain his space. Making Gobert, a four-time Defensive Player of the Year working off the switch for the preferred matchup, almost bend to his will, to the innate confidence that is a hallmark of his game.
To decide on that shot, take it and know it was going in.
Halfway through the game, late in the second quarter, the Mavericks were down by 18 but they, impressively, collectively, pushed back.
Outside of Dončić, Kyrie Irving had 20 points, 13 alone, in the fourth quarter. Daniel Gafford, shooting 8-10 from the field, finished with 16 points and five recorded blocks.
And now Dallas is just two wins away from their first NBA Finals since their championship appearance in the 2010/2011 season.
Dončić being at the forefront though, really shouldn’t be a shock at this point (when you’re being compared to Larry Bird straight up, contentious or not, you’re doing something right).
A few months ago?
I wrote about his success, on his way to a career year: he led the NBA in points-per-a-game in the regular season at 33.9 and finished third in MVP-voting behind Nikola Jokić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Of the three though, Dončić is the last man standing.
Jokić’s Denver Nuggets, after running the gauntlet last season, on their way to the championship, are now on the beach, ousted in seven by Minnesota in the second round - and Gilgeous-Alexander’s Oklahoma City Thunder?
They’re doing the same, polishing off their umbrella-topped drinks, after being bested in six by Dallas in those same semifinals.
It is as stark a reminder as any. In the modern NBA? In this post, peak LeBron era? Success is a fleeting thing.
If you manage to get it and hold on to it, however briefly, there is always someone on the come-up, nipping at your heels, at the door, trying to force their way through.
The Mavericks, after making it to the Conference Finals in 2022, for example, missed the playoffs altogether the following year.
This return appearance, not something you’d expect them to take lightly. Up by two though they are and heading back to Dallas having firmly taken away home-court advantage from the Timberwolves, it would be foolhardy to expect them to take their foot off the gas.
And on the reverse side of the coin, even if they're down, with their stars so far kept in check, nobody should expect Minnesota to fold without a fight, either.
Karl-Anthony Towns, for one, shot only 4-16 from the floor and through these first two games of the WCF, Anthony Edwards, though he put up 21 points on Friday night, is equally inefficient at 11-33.
A stronger showing, across the board, no doubt required as they look to keep their season from teetering on the brink of elimination.
You can’t blow such a lead, with the stakes so high and your stars stumbling, yet expect to come out on the other side wholly unscathed.
But if they want to have any chance at doing so, it’ll run, it seems, through the man leading the opposing charge: Dončić.
And try as they might? Yeah, they’ll be in tough.