UPDATE: Mavs star Luka Doncic's eligible to play at Pacers after technical foul was rescinded
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UPDATE: Mavs star Luka Doncic's eligible to play at Pacers after technical foul was rescinded
The Dallas Mavericks guard was expected to be suspended for Monday after being called for his 16th tech this season; but the NBA rescinded the call on Monday afternoon.
UPDATE: 6:30 p.m. ET — Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle was not surprised that Doncic would be able to play Monday.
“No, I wasn’t,” he shared during his pregame comments. “Like a lot of great players, he gets hit on virtually every play. I’ve seen it close up. And, as a coach leading the league in technical fouls for coaches (11), I empathize with disagreements with officials. Sometimes it gets emotional, but I wasn’t the least bit surprised it was rescinded.
Unless it was something that was really over the top, with what everybody’s competing for, you can’t have a guy lose a game.”
UPDATE: 1:15 p.m. ET Monday — The game officials said they got it right, but the league office says otherwise. Mavericks guard Luka Doncic’s technical foul on Sunday in Charlotte has been rescinded by the NBA, meaning he is not suspended for Monday’s game in Indianapolis.
It was Doncic’s 16th technical foul of the season so he was expected to be suspended for Mavs at Pacers. The Mavs have lost seven of their past nine games and will be playing on the second night of a back-to-back.
The Pacers, meanwhile, are back from a four-game road trip and play five of their final seven games at home over the next two weeks.
Pacers guard Buddy Hield, who spends his offseason in Dallas, has been ruled out for the game with a non-Covid illness. It’ll be his first game sidelined as a Pacer since being acquired in Feb. 2022 — a streak of 101 consecutive games.
It’s stunning, to say the least.
The Indiana Pacers will host the Dallas Mavericks Monday night, their annual visit to town. But four-time NBA All-Star Luka Doncic isn’t expected to be available to play.
Doncic was given a technical foul with 7:51 to play in the third quarter of their 110-104 loss in Charlotte Sunday afternoon. It was his 16th of the season, which triggers an automatic one-game suspension from the NBA.
The league office will review it, but it seems unlikely to be rescinded considering the analysis from the officiating crew on site. (As of this writing, the NBA has not yet made the suspension official.)
Crew chief Kevin Scott confirmed the correct call was made in the postgame pool report, saying “Doncic was assessed a technical foul for his use of profanity directed at the officials in protest to a no-call that was correctly judged in postgame video review.”
Doncic was then not made available to reporters afterward, per ESPN's Tim MacMahon.
It’s unfortunate for Pacers fans because they won’t be seeing one of the game’s best. Doncic is absolutely worth the price of admission, but now he’ll be ineligible to play Monday night.
After being on the road for seven of their past eight games, the Pacers close the 2022-23 regular season with five of their final seven games at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Including three games this week: Monday vs Mavericks, Wednesday vs Bucks and Friday vs Thunder.
Chris Duarte has already been ruled out with left ankle soreness. He did not play in the second half on Saturday in Atlanta. Tyrese Haliburton and Myles Turner are questionable to play.
The Pacers (33-42) narrowly won in Dallas by two points back on Feb. 28. It came on the birthdays of both Doncic and Haliburton.
Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle, who coached Doncic for his first three seasons in the Dallas, was asked before that game if he got Doncic a birthday gift. To which he responded, “I brought him Haliburton.”
Haliburton then went out and led the Pacers to a road win with 32 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
Even before Doncic was issued a technical foul on Sunday, things have not been going well for the Mavs, who are on a five-game road trip.
They’ve now lost seven of their past nine games, including four in a row. And the past two games were to the Charlotte Hornets, a team long overdue to make sweeping changes to the team.
The Mavs are just 36-39 and have fallen back to 11th in the standings, a half game back from the OKC Thunder.
UPDATE: Mavs star Luka Doncic's eligible to play at Pacers after technical foul was rescinded
So the Mavs 1st round pick is only top-ten protected, and by my look they are now 11th worst. If the Pacers want to tank this one I expect they will have their hands full. Free-falling Dallas has little reason to try. Interesting game ahead... :)
This smells like a rest Myles, Ty and TJ game written all over it.