Mavs' Luka Doncic Selected to MVP Top 3 as NBA Reveals Award Finalists

With the playoffs officially underway, the NBA announced the finalists for all regular-season awards on Sunday night.

After averaging 33.9 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 9.8 assists per game – a feat no other player in league history has ever achieved – Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic made it as a finalist for the MVP award. Doncic joins two other finalists in Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic and Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

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Even if Doncic doesn’t come away with the MVP hardware this year, this is the first time he’s been selected as a finalist. The highest Doncic previously finished in MVP voting was fourth during the 2019-20 season.

Although winning MVP would be a great achievement for Doncic, he would much rather his team win an NBA championship instead. For that to happen, though, the Mavs must perform at a higher level than they did in Game 1 of their first-round series opener against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday afternoon. Dallas got off to an abysmal start and ultimately fell 109-97 at Crypto.com Arena.

“We were more physical on defense [in the second half],” Doncic said of his team’s attempt to come back from being down 29 points. “That’s about it. In the second half, that’s how we should play the whole game, so we got to learn from that.

“I just gotta stay aggressive. That was my bad in the first half. It wasn’t aggressive enough, so I just got to stay aggressive and find the open man.”

Doncic finished Game 1 with 33 points, 13 rebounds, and six assists, but he only shot 11-26 from the field, including just 4-12 from 3-point range. The MVP finalist will have another chance to steal home-court advantage from the Clippers on Tuesday night in Game 2.