The Los Angeles Lakers have advanced to the knockout round of the Emirates NBA Cup after beating the L.A. Clippers on Tuesday night to improve to 3-0 and win their group.
As is usually the case when he plays the Clippers, Luka Doncic had a big game, leading all scorers with 43 points, nine rebounds and 13 assists on 14-of-28 shooting. And he did that despite not having proper footing for most of the night.
For the NBA Cup, the league has brought in new courts and the Lakers debuted theirs on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, it became clear early on that the court was more slippery than usual as a number of players took falls.
That creates a dangerous playing environment that Doncic hopes gets addressed sooner rather than later.
“It’s just slippery. It’s dangerous,” Doncic said after the game. “I slipped. I slipped a lot of times, and you could see a lot of players slipped. And that’s dangerous, man.”
The Lakers will play on the same court again on Friday when they host Doncic’s former team, the Dallas Mavericks. They then could potentially play on it one more time if they host a quarterfinal game.
But while Doncic felt the slippery court had to do with the NBA Cup decals, Lakers head coach JJ Redick thought it may have been from condensation with the L.A. Kings playing at Crypto.com Arena on Monday night.
“Yeah, I mean we’ll look at it. I noticed that guys were slipping, but I also noticed that guys were falling prior to that,” Redick said. “So, I don’t know, sometimes courts just don’t dry well when there’s condensation on it. I wish I had the White Goodman quote about sweating right now from ‘Dodgeball’, but I don’t. Otherwise, I’d use it, but yeah, we’ll take a look at it.”
Regardless of the reason, this is definitely something that needs to be addressed as the playing conditions on Tuesday night were a liability and easily could have led to injuries.
Luka Doncic willing to pay Jaxson Hayes’ fine
Luka Doncic was at the center of everything in the Lakers’ win over the Clippers as he also was involved in an altercation late in the game after being shoved by Kris Dunn. Doncic was unhappy about it and so were his teammates as Jaxson Hayes immediately stepped in and shoved Dunn.
Hayes picked up a technical foul and likely will be fined as a result, although Doncic volunteered to pay if for his teammates since he had his back.
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