Matchup Breakdown: Luka Doncic in the Copa Del Rey Final

This past weekend was the Copa Del Rey tournament in Spain. This tournament features the top eight finishers from the first half of the ACB season, and takes place over the week in a designated host city. Much like the Copa Del Rey in La Liga or the FA Cup in English soccer, the tournament is outside the regular domestic league season, but is still a high-stakes affair with plenty of clout riding on it. This year’s Copa final pitted Real Madrid against Barcelona for the fourth time in the last seven years, and that meant the chance to see Luka Doncic perform on one of his biggest stages of the season.

Doncic struggled in Madrid’s 92-90 loss. Madrid got down in the second-quarter thanks to some ice-cold shooting, and needed a big fourth-quarter rally to even make it a game. Much of the cold shooting came from Doncic, who shot just 1-of-8 from the field. However, he still finished with a respectable line, posting 14 points, five rebounds, and three assists in the game. The shot didn’t fall all night, but the game still showed glimpses of what makes Doncic a special prospect, and the struggles can be put in context.

That context is that from the outset, Barca aimed to be incredibly physical with Doncic. The struggling rivals of Real played him like the Cavs played Steph Curry in the 2016 NBA Finals, forcing matchups with bigger forwards and trapping Doncic off the dribble. Doncic took more than a few bumps throughout the game, including two major incidents — an errant elbow from Rakim Sanders in the first quarter:

And a very blatant dirty hit from Pierre Oriola after the buzzer sounded.

In between, Barcelona aimed to get the ball out of Doncic’s hands and limit his ability to get to the rim. Doncic spent much of the game being defended by Spurs draft-and-stash forward Adam Hanga, one of Euroleague’s best defenders, and Hanga forced Doncic into one turnover in a one-on-one situation.

Those traps limited Doncic’s ability to get to the rim, and resulted in only three attempts for him inside the paint, far lower than his season average. However, Doncic did get the best of the situation a few times. His strength came into play against the traps, and he drew two fouls on the perimeter in this situation, including this powerful split of a Hanga/Ante Tomic trap.

Much has been made of Doncic’s lack of burst from the perimeter, hinting at an athleticism problem that could limit his ceiling as an off-the-dribble creator. In addition to trapping Doncic, Barca walled off the paint, and Doncic ended up pulling up on three of his four 2-point attempts.

It was clear throughout the game that Barca’s goal of throwing Doncic off rhythm by being physical worked. After the Sanders foul, he became slightly disengaged from the game, and his shooting rhythm was clearly affected. This explains the poor shooting performance. However, Doncic’s response to this was pretty impressive. He still found ways to impact the game, and ended up being instrumental in Madrid’s eventual comeback to being a missed tip-in away from overtime.

Part of this impact came from drawing fouls — Doncic had 16 free throw attempts throughout the game, stemming from a combination of technical free throws, fouls drawn on the perimeter, and attacks at the rim. This game did a good job of showcasing what could negate the athleticism concerns for him off the dribble. Doncic’s strength is impressive, and he fits the mold of a power creator like James Harden or Kyle Lowry — he’s stocky, with broad shoulders and a developing lower body frame, and he takes a hit better than anyone in this class. His craft off the dribble is also exciting — as this attack of a closeout from the third quarter demonstrates.

We have certainly seen this combination be effective in today’s NBA. Free throws are efficient, and generating them consistently is an important skill. The ability to draw contact consistently helps space the defense out a little bit, and Doncic projects to be very good at this even at the NBA level. That strength, along with the craft to finish more wild shots, should benefit him. we saw that through his one make, a beautiful circus shot off the dribble after putting his defender in jail:

Doncic also can always make an impact with his passing, and did so in this game despite Barca deliberately forcing the ball out of his hands. He had just three assists, but his fourth quarter was a passing clinic, and he was able to throw multiple passes that would headline many draft prospects’ highlight reels. It’s now time for your obligatory Doncic passing highlight collection, featuring a pass out of a trap that skips through two paint defenders:

A solid under-control kick-out of the paint:

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Doncic breakdown without an “I have no idea how he saw this pass was available” skip pass out of the pick-and-roll:

The other promising piece from this game was that despite being out of sync on offense and getting roughed up throughout the game, Doncic’s defensive effort stayed pretty consistent for the most part. There were a couple blown rotations and instances of slacking off, but Doncic maintained composure against tough assignments ranging from the 6-foot-9 Hanga to Rakim Sanders to center Adrian Moerman. He held his own denying the lane to both forwards throughout the game, and when put in the pick-and-roll, he did a nice job of trailing the shooter after fighting through the screen.

He also showed some very strong closeouts in this game. Doncic’s coordination is pretty impeccable, and he has good footwork and discipline reading the shooter off the catch. His quickness and youth limit his ability to consistently make this type of play, but there’s definite promise that we’ll see more plays like this in the future.

Doncic also made one of the biggest plays of the game on the defensive end, coming up with a tough contested rebound off an Oriola missed free throw. Doncic’s rebounding is one of his best skills, and despite a game of getting shoved around and shooting poorly, Real doesn’t get that chance at the buzzer if Doncic doesn’t fight off Victor Claver to secure this rebound.

How a prospect handles adversity is always information that NBA teams want to know. It’s nice to see a player consistently perform at a high level, but you want to know how a player will react to things going poorly in an individual performance. Doncic has had several games this year where he’s been roughed up or gotten into altercations, and there are real questions about how he’s able to control his emotions. But in a huge moment, it was nice to see him stay under control, for the most part. He maintained an impact in the game despite his shot not falling and his team’s performance falling off in the third quarter, and despite missing a portion of the comeback, he had a key assist and that rebound late in the game that were instrumental to getting a shot to win at the buzzer.

Next: Has 2018 NBA Draft prospect Miles Bridges changed?

Overall, this game demonstrates many of the qualities that have Doncic at the top of many draft boards despite this year’s level of college talent. There are questions about his ability to score as a number one option, but he showed in the Copa Final that he’s able to impact the game in a meaningful way even if he isn’t scoring well. He consistently gives good effort on defense, makes smart plays, and his passing will always be incredible even by NBA standards. This may not have been Doncic’s best showing, but even in a down game, the reasons why he’s regarded so highly showed through. It’s a testament to Doncic’s polish as a prospect that he was able to maintain effective play despite the way the game played out, and that’s something we don’t see regularly from even top draft picks at this age. He’s in a league of his own in that regard, and the Copa Final was a great example of why he deserves to go number one.