It’s safe to assume that Dallas Mavericks fans were pleased with the team’s nine-point victory over the Oklahoma Thunder on Thursday night. But maybe not as pleased as whoever awkwardly interrupted Luka Doncic’s post-game conference.
After leading the Mavs to even the Western Conference semifinal series 1–1, Doncic sat at the podium to talk about the big win. That's when things took a weird turn.
The loud sound of a woman moaning suddenly interrupted the meeting full of reporters. Doncic immediately became wide-eyed with shock and stopped speaking mid-sentence. Once the short sound stopped, the point guard hung his head and covered his face with his hand as he and several reporters began laughing.
“OK, moving on,” one interviewer said amongst the awkward laughter.
Doncic then sat up straight with a smile and prepared to carry on with the interview.
“I hope that’s not live,” Doncic joked.
Twitter has theorized the sound came from any number of sources, with guesses ranging from a journalist opening the wrong tab on their phone to someone's locker room incident being broadcast on a speaker. Representatives for the Mavericks could not immediately be reached for comment on where the sound came from. However, according to today’s episode of The Athletic NBA Show podcast, it may have been a prank by one of Doncic’s teammates.
Tim Cato, a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Mavs, went on the show today with the podcast’s host and producer, Andrew Schlecht, to talk about last night’s game. Cato said he did not witness the incident himself, but heard it was a player who played a video through their phone to mess with Doncic. However, that player was not identified to his knowledge.
"I had to clarify it was a player to defend the honor of the Dallas media core," Cato joked. "We don't do that type of stuff down here."
The Mavs are set to take on the Thunder again in Game 3 of the conference semifinals on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
