In the fourth quarter of Game 3, Golden State Warriors’ swingman Andrew Wiggins committed an assault on the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic (not literally, obviously -that would be terrible. But Luka’s feelings were definitely hurt).
Wiggins (or, as we Canadians like call him, Maple Jordan) was out on the wing, letting Steph Curry do his ISO thing. But as Curry attacked the basket, Wiggins’ defender, Doncic, collapsed into the key to help out the defence.
Seeing that his teammate was wide open, Curry passed the ball to Wiggins.
Wiggins caught it as a defender (Reggie Bullock) closed in on him, faked a shot which caused the D to stumble, and attacked the basket with all the power of the mighty beaver.
And as Wiggins rocketed up, Luka knew that he was going to be immortalized in this poster. So, he served up some “Luka Special” and flopped mid-air.
Yes, this dunk was so brutal that Luka had to flop mid-air. He was pretending like he got hit in the face, when in fact, Wiggins didn’t even touch him anywhere near his cranium.
As Wiggins landed on the ground with the majestic beavertail he summoned, and Luka lay on the ground whining, the refs blew the whistle and called the play an offensive foul.
What the heck?
An offensive foul, if you don’t know, is when the offence (i.e. a shooter or ball-handler) commits a penalty against a defender.
But as I said earlier, Maple Jordan did not (illegally) touch Luka Legend and everybody in American Airlines Center knew that.
The only penalty that was committed was that Wiggins didn’t apologize with a “sorry, eh” after posterizing this young Slovenian boy.
So, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr got the referees to review the call. After a few minutes of deliberation, the referees admitted that they were wrong and overturned the call.
Wiggins was awarded the points for the dunk (which for some reason validates the greatness of the dunk more).
Anyway, give it a watch here:
The Warriors went on to defeat the Mavericks 109-100 and took a 3-0 lead in this series.
Final Thoughts
There have been some great plays this season in the NBA.
But I think this dunk is by far the best one yet. Heck, this dunk was more electrifying than all of the dunks from this year’s dunk contest.
I know there’s still more basketball to be played this season, but I don’t think anything is going to top this.
But what are your thoughts on it?
And also, I know this may have come off as a little harsh on Luka Doncic, but it’s all for the sake of comedy.
He played great this game. As a matter of fact, he had the best stats out of anyone this game with 40 points, 11 rebounds, 1 steal, and 2 blocks.
But that dunk and Doncic flopping was just something else and I had to talk some smack.
And also (also), why do I even care? The possibility of him getting posterized and the aftermath that ensues is part of the job.
Must be the Canadian in me… I have been eating a lot of maple syrup lately as well.