Mavericks All-Star guard Luka Doncic has been named the Most Valuable Player of the Western Conference Finals, winning this year’s Earvin “Magic” Johnson Trophy, the NBA has announced (via Twitter).
Doncic earned all nine media votes for the honor, the league revealed (Twitter link).
The 6’7″ guard just put the finishing touches on a five-game defeat of the higher-seeded Timberwolves, scoring 36 points — including 20 in the first quarter — on 14-of-27 shooting from the floor in Thursday’s 124-103 Game 5 blowout victory. For good measure, Doncic logged 10 rebounds, five assists, a steal, and a +22 plus-minus. All-Star backcourt mate Kyrie Irving also finished with 36 points. With the victory, Dallas advances to its first NBA Finals since 2011, when Doncic was 12 years old and current head coach Jason Kidd was the team’s starting point guard.
Through 17 playoff games so far, Doncic is averaging 28.8 points on a .438/.343/.806 slash line. He’s also chipping in 9.6 rebounds, 8.8 dimes, 1.6 steals and 0.5 blocks a night.
According to The Athletic (via Twitter), Doncic is the first player in the history of the league to log 150 or more rebounds and assists and 50 or more three-point field goals during one playoff run.
Though all but the last of the games were fairly close, Doncic and Irving’s clutch play, both as isolation scorers and as tactical distributors, helped the team pull away late in all but one instance.
At 50-32, Dallas entered the West playoffs as the No. 5 seed, meaning it was an underdog, without homecourt advantage, in each of its three postseason matches. That made little difference, as the club took care of the No. 4-seeded Clippers and the No. 1-seeded Thunder in six games apiece, across successive rounds, before moving on to handle Minnesota in the West Finals.