LOS ANGELES – The minutes started dwindling in Game 1.
Maybe because the issues were masked with a win.
By Game 4 of the second-round Western Conference playoff series between Dallas and Oklahoma City, however, Josh Giddey admittedly saw the writing on the wall.
Then-Mavericks guard Luka Doncic, and to a certain extent Kyrie Irving, were hunting Giddey down when they had the ball in their hands. Whether they wanted him in pick-and-roll or isolation, it didn’t matter. They had found the hole in the Thunder’s defense and looked to expose it as long as Giddey was on the floor.
“That’s not a feeling you want to have,” Giddey said earlier this year of how that series played out last May.
Because it came at a cost.
Not only had Giddey lost his starting job for the final two games – both won by Dallas – but in the eyes of the Thunder and that playoff loss he had become expendable.
News broke on June 20 that Giddey was traded from the team that selected him No. 6 overall in the 2021 draft, sent from Oklahoma City to the Bulls in exchange for Alex Caruso.
A cost indeed.
Fast forward to Saturday night in Tinseltown, and Doncic – now a Laker – finding out things have changed. Giddey was no longer the hunted, he’s the hunter.
Leading into the Bulls-Lakers game, Giddey was told that he would be assigned to guarding Doncic. The Bulls’ Billy Donovan going crazy or simply a coach realizing that Giddey has made strides on the defensive side of the ball and wanted to instill even further confidence in him?
Crazy like a fox.
While Doncic was scoring at a high rate in that first half – 29 points – he was also turning it over and allowing the Bulls to play to their identity in transition and build a slight lead. Solid film study by Giddey played a part in that because they knew Doncic would put him in pick-and-roll, and understood his tendencies to attack the rim, find the pocket, or kick it out to the corner if help came from that side.
That’s why Giddey had four steals.
That’s also why with six minutes left in the third and Giddey then up to six steals, Doncic became so frustrated that he threw an elbow into Giddey’s chest and was hit with a technical. That didn’t stop Giddey from talking to Doncic, doing whatever he could to try and frustrate him.
“I will tell you that Josh is very competitive and he’s tough,” Donovan said. “He’ll stand his ground, and I think he plays with a real good edge to him.”
An edge that left Giddey just two steals short of a historic quadruple-double.
“I don’t know if it was at me or the officials, whatever it was, but I was trying to do what I could to slow him down,” Giddey said of the incident where he and Doncic traded paint. “I enjoyed the matchup. Experience like that is going to make you better and obviously on that side of the ball I want to keep getting better, so whether it’s trying to frustrate a guy or whatever it is. It was a lot of fun.”
And in some way, not so much revenge, but definitely retribution for last year.
“I think a lot of defense is just how hard you want to try at it,” Giddey added. “It sounds kind of corny, but it really is the truth. He gave me 30 in the first half, so it wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but these experiences can only make you better as a defender.
“I was the guy (Doncic) would bring up to try and go at (in that playoff series), so things have changed a little bit since then.”
Indeed, they have.