Analysis | Luka Doncic got angry, and his first NBA Finals became inevitable

Doncic nodded and smiled at the fan, then ended the conversation by ending the Minnesota Timberwolves’ season.

Thanks to an utterly ruthless display of Doncic’s scoring might, the Mavericks scored a 124-103 blowout victory over the Timberwolves in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals on Thursday to secure their first trip to the NBA Finals since 2011. The 25-year-old Doncic, who posted 36 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in the closeout win, was unanimously named series MVP. Dallas will face the Boston Celtics in the Finals, which begin Thursday.

Michael Jordan once deployed a shrug and a smirk when he couldn’t miss. Doncic turns sadistic when his game peaks. On this night, arguably the best of his career given the stakes, he snarled, flexed, gritted his teeth and skipped down the court in a feverish trance. After each demoralizing shot during a 20-point spree in the first quarter, he kept looking in the direction of the heckler to see whether he wanted another. Shot, then stare, shot, then stare, over and over until Target Center was silent.

“I can’t tell you [what the heckler said],” Doncic said. “But you know that gets me going. Everybody knows that.”

When another Timberwolves fan, this one seated along the baseline, theatrically rubbed his eyes to mimic a crying infant during the second half, Doncic finished a basket through contact, looked over his shoulder at the man and asked: “Who’s crying, motherf—er?”

By that point, the game was long over. There was no time to waste, no reason to allow this contest to be decided in crunchtime like the rest of the series. Doncic, so annoyed by his performance in a Game 4 loss Tuesday and so intent on reaching the first Finals of his six-year career, scored on Dallas’s opening two possessions and made his first five shots. The crowd gulped as one.

“He was definitely in ‘Luka Magic’ mode,” said Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd, who was a point guard on Dallas’s 2011 championship team. “He set the tone and made it easier for everybody else. He took the crowd out of the game right off the bat. He let his teammates know that it’s time to take it up a notch. As a leader, that’s what you need.”

Back-to-back Doncic three-pointers stretched Dallas’s lead to double digits late in the first quarter. The dazed Timberwolves couldn’t stop the margin from swelling to 20 points early in the second quarter. A late run by Kyrie Irving gave the Mavericks a 69-40 lead heading into halftime. Doncic got right back to work after the break to build an insurmountable 36-point cushion; by comparison, the first four games of the series were decided by a total of 18 points.

For Minnesota, it was a sad but somewhat appropriate end to a memorable postseason. The Timberwolves had played with fire by winning their first three elimination games — coming back from a 3-2 series deficit to dethrone the defending champion Denver Nuggets in the second round before stealing Game 4 in Dallas. The fourth time, they finally got burned.

The Timberwolves had also struggled to live up to Target Center’s expectations in recent weeks. After winning its two home games against the Phoenix Suns in the first round, Minnesota went just 1-5 at home against Denver and Dallas.

Anthony Edwards never came close to making good on his pledge to force a Game 6, finishing with 28 points, nine rebounds and six assists to lead Minnesota, but accumulating most of his numbers after Doncic had already set the game’s terms. Karl-Anthony Towns added 28 points and 12 rebounds, but the Timberwolves appeared content to have saved face by avoiding a sweep.

While the Mavericks improved to 7-2 on the road during their run to the Finals and claimed their fifth straight win away from Dallas on Thursday, Doncic’s reputation as a traveling antagonist dates back years. During the 2022 playoffs, he capped a tense second-round series against the Suns with 35 points, 10 rebounds and four assists in a Game 7 victory in Phoenix.

Doncic’s penchant for villainy and breaking hearts will be put to the test in the Finals. Boston’s TD Garden boasts one of the NBA’s most respected and engaged crowds, and the Celtics faithful will be amped up in anticipation of the storied franchise’s first title since 2008 and a charged showdown with Kyrie Irving, who spent two ill-fated seasons wearing green from 2017 to 2019.

Irving, 32, completed a strong West finals with 36 points, five assists and four rebounds. The eight-time all-star will return to the Finals for the first time in seven years, and this will be his first championship series without LeBron James as his teammate. Irving split with James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017 to chase a title of his own with the Celtics. When that failed, he teamed up with Kevin Durant on the Brooklyn Nets for three-plus years but never advanced past the second round. Brooklyn then traded him to Dallas in 2023.

“It has been seven long years, but it’s felt like the right amount of time,” Irving said. “I had three years of losing in Cleveland [before James’s 2014 arrival], as people like to remind me, where I did nothing without certain guys on the team. I like to relish in those challenges. When you’re a young player, you take [winning] for granted to a certain degree. Now I’m in my thirties and able to stand in my own square more comfortably and more confidently. … All the stories and narratives are going to exist forever. I’m sure I’ll hear it until I retire.”

The Celtics are the betting favorites in the Finals, and they hold virtually all the conventional advantages. They won a league-best 64 regular season games, posted the league’s top point differential and blitzed through the Eastern Conference with a 12-2 postseason run. They boast home-court advantage and will enjoy three extra days of rest after completing an Eastern Conference finals sweep of the Indiana Pacers on Monday. Their starting lineup of Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Al Horford has far more collective playoff experience than their Mavericks counterparts.

But Dallas has Doncic, who looms as the ultimate equalizer after a sterling postseason run in which he has mounted a strong challenge to Nuggets center Nikola Jokic as the world’s best basketball player.

In taking apart the Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Timberwolves, Doncic and the Mavericks have slowed down perimeter stars such as Paul George, Jalen Williams and Edwards; outexecuted MVP runner-up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander; and outworked Minnesota’s massive front line of Rudy Gobert, Towns and Naz Reid. Dallas’s path through the tougher Western Conference should serve as excellent preparation for the Celtics, who have big wings like the Clippers, love to shoot three-pointers like the Thunder and play excellent defense like the Timberwolves.

Meanwhile, Boston must shift into top gear after knocking out the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers and Pacers, who dealt with injuries to stars Jimmy Butler, Donovan Mitchell and Tyrese Haliburton, respectively.

After posing for photos with his teammates and celebrating on the court with his father, Doncic walked into the visitors’ locker room arm in arm with Mavericks center Dereck Lively II. Seeing Doncic clutching his West finals MVP award, Lively remarked: “That’s a nice a– trophy you got there.”

His foes vanquished and his sneer now long gone, a grinning Doncic turned generous.

“Here,” he said, extending the trophy in Lively’s direction. “You take it.”

The rookie center smartly declined, but Doncic’s ambivalence to possessing his golden prize stood in stark contrast to his ferocious pursuit. No physical object could compare to the satisfaction of making that handkerchief disappear back into a forlorn pocket.