The NBA is in the middle of Rivals Week, with one of the most highly anticipated games of the season taking place tomorrow. The Los Angeles Lakers will head to Texas to take on the Dallas Mavericks. This will mark the second return for Luka Doncic since his trade to the Lakers.
Advertisement
The Slovenian star may have bad blood with the management, but his relationship with his former team remains familial to say the least. As a result, Mavericks guard Naji Marshall understands exactly how Doncic will approach Saturday night’s game.
Emotions will still be quite high, since Doncic had once hoped to spend his entire career with the Mavericks. Evidently, he has ben able to put that aside when he faced them for the first time, scoring 45 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists on an impressive 57% shooting from the field, while leading the Lakers to victory.
Naji Marshall has been preparing for this game against the Lakers and believes Doncic will stop at nothing to repeat the performance. Regardless, he asserted that this would be a bittersweet moment for him.
“I love playing against Luka,” Marshall said. “That’s my guy. Miss him dearly. Everybody’s gonna wanna see Luka & just to be able to share the floor with Luka is a true blessing. That’s my brother. I know he’s on the opposite team, and we want to win, but I just want to see the best happen for him throughout the rest of his career.”
Unlike some of the other players on the Mavericks, Marshall didn’t get to play with Doncic for too long. He signed with Dallas ahead of the 2024-25 NBA season. However, in his short time as Doncic’s teammate, the two became quite close. Consequently, Marshall is aware of the upcoming storm.
“Y’all know he gets up for moments like this,” Marshall said. “You know what time he’s on. So it’s on us to do the best we can to come out with a victory, but Luka is definitely on that timing.”
A victory tomorrow will be considered a miraculous result Mavericks, especially since Anthony Davis is still out of action with a hand injury. Nonetheless, it remains must-see television. The only issue is that there’s a possibility the game may not even happen.
Dallas may even experience some of the winter storm, which head coach Jason Kidd revealed could jeopardize the game.
“If the Lakers land, we play. But now the other games could be in doubt, that’s something the league will have to decide on as we go forward,” Kidd said to the media.
Jason Kidd on Saturday’s game against the Lakers with the winter weather predicted to come into Dallas over the weekend:
“If Lakers land, we play…Because it becomes hard for arena availability and trying to squeeze the game in here or there, so, if the Lakers do land tomorrow,… pic.twitter.com/CKckSmckEb
— Noah Weber (@noahweber00) January 22, 2026
On behalf of all NBA fans, hopefully the Lakers-Mavericks game continues. It will be a primetime game on ABC on Saturday night at 8:30 PM ET.
