The night was long announced from the initial jump, when Patrick Beverley caught the first ball that was looking for Luka Doncic . Having just reached the age of majority, the Slovenian had already been champion and MVP of the Euroleague and the ACB with Real Madrid , and champion of the Eurobasket with Slovenia . He knows something about big stages. But this one, the NBA playoffs , was new, and what followed was both a display of unique talent and how difficult the first night can be. Doncic broke the scoring record of a playoff rookie (42 points), but made mistakes that ended up weighing in the loss of theDallas Mavericks (118-110).

The weight of the playoffs collapsed on him. In less than four minutes, Doncic had already lost five balls and the Mavs trailed 18-2. The Clippers aspired to the title and soon left their calling card, defending the Slovenian with up to four different players, some of them among the best bulldogs in the NBA. He is one of many strengths of the Angelenos, a deep and very versatile squad in defense. The plan was not new, to make Doncic uncomfortable with a very physical game, but the intensity had increased. That he was able not only to overcome it, but to shine as much as he did in some section, speaks of the magnitude of the former Madridista.

Doncic is a master at manipulating defenses, playing with the rhythms and reading the aids, finding his way to the hoop or the partner who is left free by the attention he arouses. "What shows his greatness is that every time we made a mistake on the weak side, he found that partner. I don't care if he hits the basket or makes us 3-pointers. I give him those points. But I don't want to give him the points and the assists, "later analyzed Doc Rivers , the Clippers coach, who these days had defined Doncic as a mixture of Larry Bird's scoring ability and Jason Kidd's vision of the game . They weren't empty compliments, judging by the attention they paid him

At 21 he is already one of the best generators in the NBA, but he needed to go through the bench to see everything clearer. When he returned to the court, he took over the game: in the next seven minutes, straddling the first and second quarters, the Slovenian generated 23 of his team's 26 points (11 points, 4 assists). And Dallas, who had woken up on triples, shot up (36-48).

The Slovenian is the most efficient attacking engine in history (115.9 points per 100 possessions), but even that is what the Clippers have an answer for. Kawhi Leonard (29 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists), Paul George (27) and Marcus Morris (19) responded blow for blow, but none hurt as much as the expulsion by two techniques (the first, very rigorous) of Kristaps Porzingis . Without a 2.21 center threatening from the outside, life (and paint) became more difficult for Doncic.

Dallas managed to reach the final stretch with options, but what little life he has left was lost in a mistake by Doncic: while he reproached his teammate Seth Curry for a bad shot, he forgot to defend Marcus Morris , who scored the triple that killed the party.

Luka Doncic broke the scoring record for a playoff rookie with 42 points. It surpasses the 37 of George Mikan , the 36 of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Derrick Rose , or the 35 of Wilt Chamberlain , Chris Paul and Anthony Davis . At their age, only Magic Johnson and LeBron James had crossed the 40-point barrier in the playoffs. One more notch on his revolver, but which tasted bittersweet - he himself described it as a bad match - for his mistakes and defeat.

"[Doncic] is the future. We did not face the game thinking that we were going to be able to stop it, but we wanted to make it hard. [In the playoffs] the games are accumulating, and we are going to try to wear it down as much as we can," summarized Paul George. The second round, with the lesson already learned, awaits Wednesday.

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