Slovenian Luka Doncic, player for the American first basketball team Los Angeles Lakers, scored 52 points, leading his teammates to a 132-123 victory over host Utah Jazz in NBA professional league matches.
Doncic, who is 2.03 meters tall, said after the match: "It feels great to play a close game in its crucial moments and succeed in making those three-point shots. We played our usual style, we learn from our mistakes, we can't start matches like this again, we are a cohesive group, I think all the new players felt a great welcome here, and that is exactly what we want."
Exceptional performance
After James left for Philadelphia this summer, Doncic has become the star player for the Lakers, delivering an exceptional performance that added 10 assists, 8 rebounds, 8 successful three-point shots, and 2 steals to his scoring tally.
Doncic, aged 27, received strong support from Austin Reeves, his teammate at the Lakers, who scored 29 points, enabling the visiting team to secure the match in the last four minutes, after being behind in the score for long periods of the game.
Lakers' return
This is the first time this season that a player has scored 50 points or more, noting that Doncic led the league's scoring list last season.
Utah Jazz dominated the first half, widening the gap at times to 18 points, thanks to the performance of Finnish player Lauri Markkanen (28 points), but the Lakers managed to return, and Doncic scored a three-pointer just seconds before the end of the second quarter, giving his team a slight lead at halftime.
In the fourth quarter, Utah Jazz regained the lead by a small margin about four minutes before the end, before Doncic succeeded in scoring another three-pointer to tie the score at 116-116.
James loses with Philadelphia
In the other match, the Seventy Sixers, who won their first three matches, suffered a defeat against the Pistons by 13 points, in a match where James, aged 41, managed only to score 18 points.
The Pistons, who topped the Eastern Conference last season, imposed their control on the game from the beginning, widening the gap to 21 points during the second quarter.
Tyrese Maxey, the best scorer in the match with 29 points, tried hard to bring the Seventy Sixers back into the game by scoring 18 points in the final quarter, but the visiting team managed to withstand the pressures, achieving their third consecutive victory.
Source: Arriyadiyah newspaper
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