Lakers News: How Dallas Demolished Los Angeles On Christmas
Today, with Anthony Davis shelved, your Los Angeles Lakers managed to choke away a double-digit first-half advantage to suffer a Christmas Day defeat, 124-115 (but it wasn't really quite that close most of the night), at the hands of All-Star guard Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks, as coached by former Lakers assistant Jason Kidd, on the road during a marquee bout.
With today's contest, Lakers All-Star LeBron James has now officially played in the most Christmas games in league history with 17, per the Lakers.
In the first quarter, LeBron James got off to a hot start for L.A. Not to be outdone, reserve guard Russell Westbrook looked to score early with a nice driving take:
The Lakers had a solid first quarter, finishing up seven, 28-21. James led all Lakers with 10 points. Center Thomas Bryant, starting for Davis, scored four points on 2-of-2 shooting, plus grabbing three rebounds and dishing out two dimes.
In the second quarter, the Lakers employed more of a sharing-is-caring approach to their offense... and subsequently let the Mavericks back into the game. When James returned to the team's lineup, L.A. promptly went on a 10-2 tear.
James led his Lakers in scoring with 18 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the floor (including 0-of-2 from deep) and 0-of-0 from the charity stripe., four rebounds, and three assists at the end of the first two quarters.
Russell Westbrook chipped in 12 points of his own on 5-of-12 shooting. The Lakers led at the half by double digits, 54-43.
As one might expect, the Lakers quickly coughed up that advantage in the third quarter, given that they can't take three-pointers and LeBron James can't play every second of the game.
Overall, Bryant looked fairly athletic and flashed a solid two-man game with James. Why isn't he getting fed the ball on pick-and-rolls all the time? Bryant got five (five!) shot attempts up all game, and he nailed four of them (80%). Only Russell Westbrook and James actually took more than seven field goal attempts for the night.
The Mavericks quickly managed to get back into the game with a rash of three-point shooting early in the period. Dallas shot 4-of-6 from deep while L.A. took no treys in the frame's first 3:36, closing the gap to just three points, 58-55, on a 12-4 run.
Lonnie Walker IV finally broke the three-point shooting drought with a triple of his own, his third of the game. Mavericks starting center Christian Wood instantly responded with another triple, getting Dallas temporarily within a point.
Doncic dished out of triple coverage to an expectant Tim Hardaway Jr., who nailed a corner triple to give the Mavericks their first lead of the day, 65-63.
Westbrook was assessed a technical foul for protesting a delay-of-game warning midway through the frame.
The Mavericks used a 15-2 run to build their advantage to 70-63 at one point, before James finally got to the line to nail a pair of free throws and chip away at that margin.
Through three quarters, James had 24 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the floor, five assists, and four rebounds, and was the Lakers' only player with a positive plus-minus (+2).
All told, the Mavericks scored a whopping 51 points in the third quarter (a franchise record, apparently), outdoing their total through the game's first two frames. The Lakers, meanwhile, scored a mere 21 points in the frame. Dallas led 94-75 heading into the game's final period.
The contest was all but over in the fourth, though L.A. did its darnedest to stage a "comeback" attempt at the start of the quarter, with James looking to draw contact inside with more proactive drives. James got L.A. within 10 at the 10:32 mark, 94-84. LBJ notched his seventh straight 30+ point contest, quite the achievement for a 37-year-old in his 20th NBA season. It was not meant to last, and soon enough the Mavericks were running away with the game.
Darvin Ham, just to be eccentric, went with probably the smallest five-man lineup in the history of the NBA: 6'5" Austin Reaves, 6'4" Lonnie Walker IV, 6'3" Russell Westbrook, 6'1" Patrick Beverley and 6'3" Dennis Schröder.
With the defeat, L.A. has fallen to a brutal 13-20 on the season. Dallas, meanwhile, moves to an 18-16 record for 2022-23.
James scored 38 points on 13-of-23 shooting, plus 12-of-12 free throw shooting. Reserve guards Westbrook and Reaves were the only other Lakers to score in double digits. Doncic led Dallas with 32 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the field and 12-of-16 shooting from the charity stripe. He also fouled out with a hard foul against Reaves late in the fourth and the game already out of hand, but it didn't exactly matter.
The big story today was the three-point disparity, as usual. The Mavericks went 18-of-44 from deep (40.9%), while the Lakers went 9-of-28 from long range (32.1%).
