Nine out of Dorian Finney-Smith’s ten buckets in this game were assisted by Luka Doncic. Not saying that to denigrate Finney-Smith here, just saying that to illustrate the fact that were it not for Finney-Smith’s hot shooting, Doncic’s monster triple-double would be just a regular triple-double with a lot of points. I hope Doncic ordered Finney-Smith the most premium items from room service.
I can hear the chorus rising from the foaming mouths of furious Bucks fans: “Why do scrubs always go off on us?” they wail, raising their fists to the sky to curse the God that allowed this to happen. I understand their frustration, but only in a limited, clinical since, because I have no concept of getting upset over role-players having good games. Certainly, if Finney-Smith had a normal offensive outing, the Bucks would’ve steamrolled the Mavericks.
The reality is, though, if you just leave dudes open on the three-point line, sometimes those dudes are going to hit the shots. The Bucks’ strategy is to leave marginal shooters open, with the idea that most of them won’t just keep taking them if they miss a few. It works a lot of the time, but in this one, Finney-Smith made them pay. Bad. 27 points, a career-high by a lot, 6 threes, also a career-high by a lot. Lots of people might get hyped for Doncic’s gaudy numbers here, but when I saw them, I had to stifle a huge yawn. To use the words of Kevin Durant, Dorian Finney-Smith is the real MVP.
Editor’s note: Finney-Smith’s fifth bucket is not shown. Not my fault, don’t blame me. If I had to guess, it was an easy spoonfed layup made possible by Doncic’s passing wizardry, but that’s just a guess.
Editor’s note two: shoutout to the dipsticks over at ESPN for playing a frickin’ half-screen Bud Light ad DURING GAMEPLAY. I cropped it out so that you could see Finney-Smith’s three without being advertised to, but come on. If the NBA moves to “showing ads while the game is actually going on”, I’m done, and you should be too.