Luka Doncic clapped, got a technical, told the official nobody else would have gotten one, and on Tuesday the NBA took the tech back. The league rescinded the call from Monday’s 138-117 win over Miami, Dave McMenamin reported for ESPN, which drops Doncic’s season total from two back to one.
Good. A clap was a thin reason for a technical, and I’m glad the league wiped it off. The part I care about is the count. Doncic has one technical through seven games. Sixteen gets him an automatic one-game suspension. Last season he reached it and sat out a game in the final week of March. The Lakers need that number to stay so far away that nobody in April has to do arithmetic about it.
What Happened Monday
The whistle came with 1:12 left in the second quarter, according to ESPN’s play-by-play. Klay Thompson made the free throw, which cut the Lakers’ lead to 72-67. Zach Bachar of Bleacher Report described the trigger as Doncic appearing to clap in the direction of an official. Ryan Young of Yahoo Sports transcribed what the broadcast picked up afterward: “I clapped. That’s a technical? Come on now. If it was anybody else, you know it’s not a technical. Come on now.”
“If it was anybody else” is the whole reputation problem in one line. Doncic thinks he gets whistled for his history, and he has spent years building the history that makes officials quick to reach for the whistle. He controls only one part of that: the history he keeps adding to.
Doncic declined to talk about it after the game, per Young. That was smart. He had 42 points, 13 assists and seven rebounds on 14-of-24 shooting in 36 minutes, according to ESPN’s box score, and the Lakers won by 21. Nothing he could say about the officials would have improved that night.
The Count That Matters
Here is where the season stands, as of Tuesday night. McMenamin noted Doncic went his first four games without a technical. The one that still counts came with 21.8 seconds left in the third quarter of the 112-95 loss at Golden State on Oct. 30, per ESPN’s play-by-play. The Heat tech would have been his second in three games. Now it’s gone.
A player whistled for 16 technicals in the regular season gets a one-game suspension and a $5,000 fine, per McMenamin. The fine is nothing. The game is the problem.
Last season Doncic hit 16 and served his suspension during the Lakers’ 120-101 win over Washington on March 30, McMenamin wrote. Basketball Reference’s box score lists him as not with the team that night. The Lakers beat the Wizards without him anyway. McMenamin calls the suspension automatic, so it lands whenever the 16th whistle does, and last season that was late March, when seeding gets decided.
Before the opener, I argued that Doncic’s minutes should be capped so the Lakers have him in April. Technicals are the same argument in a different uniform. A rest night is a game the Lakers choose to give away. A suspension is a game the whistle takes, and the MVP case keeps running into games played as it is.
He Said This Was the Plan
Doncic set this goal himself. “This season, I’m trying to not get techs,” he said on Oct. 21, as McMenamin quoted it. That was the night of the Yaxel Lendeborg exchange in the opener, which I argued was an argument Doncic should let the Warriors rookie keep having with himself. That night, at least, he did. Lendeborg got the tech, and Doncic shot the free throw.
Two weeks later, the plan is mostly holding. One standing technical through seven games puts him on pace for about a dozen over a full season, well short of 16. The Golden State tech came late in the third quarter with the Lakers down 84-80, per ESPN’s play-by-play, and the Warriors pulled away in the fourth. That’s the kind of night when frustration gets expensive. The Heat tech came in the second quarter of a game the Lakers led by at least seven for the entire second half, which made it more puzzling than costly.
What I’d ask of him is narrow, and silence isn’t on the list. Doncic talks to officials, defenders and his own bench, and some of that is fuel. I’d just like the clap at officials retired. Monday showed it can draw a tech even when the league later decides it shouldn’t have.
The Rescind Is a Head Start
Nobody should count on another rescind. Treat this one as found money: a tech that won’t be sitting on his total in March.
Doncic is averaging 38.3 points through seven games, with four 40-point nights, according to his Basketball Reference game log. The Lakers are 6-2, per ESPN. His best defense against the reputation is the version of Monday where he gets the 42 and the win and the official never has a reason to look his way. If he wants proof it works, he already has it: the 52-point night in Utah came without a single technical in the game, per ESPN’s play-by-play.
Next up is Sacramento on Wednesday. Keep the count at one.