By Mykell Mathieu
The Lakers came back from a 20-point deficit in the fourth only to walk a way with 104-101 loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
The Lakers were coming off of a dominate victory over the Utah Jazz, making them 4-0 in group play for the In-Season tournament.
In this tough matchup with the Mavs. The Lakers started the first half off with no urgency.
The Lakers trailed Dallas by 16 points going into the half.
“It’s an 82-game season. There’s going to be nights where it’s not your night,” said Lakers coach Marvin Ham. “We missed a bunch of bunnies early. I quoted the stat: at halftime, we had missed five point-blank shots at the rim and 15 total in the paint. And those are shots we normally make. For whatever reason, they didn’t go down and that was part of us facing a deficit through three quarters.”
Mavs star guards Luka Doncic & Kyrie Irving gave the Lakers defense fits most of the game.
Doncic finished the game with 30 points, eight assists and 12 rebounds. Irving added 28 points and 6 rebounds.
Irving also scored the final six points for the Mavericks as he hit the game winning three and free throws to put Dallas over the top.
Though the Lakers fought back led by late surges from LeBron James & Austin Reaves. There were no moral victories taken away from this game.
“We gave ourselves a fighting chance, but it’s kind of tough when you go down that many points,” James said. “I liked our defense in the last 12 minutes. We’ve just got to be better for the first 36.”
James who had a chance to send the game to over time with his final second three but it came up short. He finished the game with 26 points, seven assists and nine rebounds.
Anthony Davis coming off of the big game over the Jazz struggled to score finishing the game with 10 points and knows that his team has to start off much better.
“We got back in it with our defense in the fourth quarter, and (we) made some big-time shots,” said Davis. “We don’t celebrate moral victories, but we’re a resilient team that will be fighting ’til the end.”
The Lakers look to get back in the win column when they travel to Cleveland to face the Cavs on Saturday.
