Wow. What a game.
It was a crazy one in Dallas on Friday night, as the Los Angeles Lakers were able to get out of town with a win against the Dallas Mavericks, 119-110. LeBron James took the Lakers home in overtime, putting together an absolute classic of a triple-double.
The ending of the 4th quarter
The game came down to the end with the Lakers ahead 100-99 with the ball in the Mavericks’ hands with about 40 seconds left. The Lakers came out of the timeout with Anthony Davis covering Luka Doncic, leading to Doncic driving by Davis and kicking out to the corner for a Dorian Finney-Smith three to put them up 102-100 with 30 seconds left (Doncic played through a bad head injury in the latter part of the 4th quarter as well as all of overtime).
The Lakers followed this up with a lackluster position, ending up in an Avery Bradley mid-range jumper out of a pick-and-roll with LeBron James. It missed, the Lakers struggled to get a foul in before the clock ended up at 6.4 seconds left, with Dwight Powell making 1-of-2 to make it 103-102.
Then, Danny Green happened. Three ball. Corner pocket courtesy of a LeBron James pass (and a Dwight Howard offensive foul).
LeBron James with a typical LeBron James game
The old man was in his bag again tonight, dropping 39 points, 16 assists, and 12 rebounds.
His three point shot was falling throughout the game, and could have looked even better in the box scores if a couple that were halfway down stayed down. Either way, he ended 4-of-9 from deep.
LeBron was also dropping dimes all over the court, continuing his impressive passing season so far. He came into this season averaging 9.5 APG, continuing to increase that statistic tonight.
He went absolutely bananas in overtime to pull the Lakers ahead, putting up 9 points and 2 assists in the five minutes.
Lakers’ weak links in the rotation starting to be exposed
The Friday night matchup against the Mavericks was a sobering night for Lakers’ fans, as they quickly started to realize who might be the weakest links of the team. The three players that most fell into that discussion were JaVale McGee, Troy Daniels, and, of course, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
There’s been a discussion about changing the starting lineup by inserting Dwight Howard at center for McGee, mostly due to Dwight’s good play so far but also because of McGee’s just as bad play. The first quarter saw him fall asleep on a boxout he was supposed to place on Dwight Powell, being taken out shortly after and not seeing the court again in the first half while Howard stayed in to cover Boban Marjanovic.
Troy Daniels just isn’t serviceable for the Lakers if he isn’t making shots, which he didn’t tonight, going 0-of-4 from the field. KCP is…well…he’s KCP and he had himself another KCP type game.
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The Lakers will follow up this absolute barn-burner with a 4:00 p.m. PST matchup in San Antonio against the Spurs on Sunday.
