LOS ANGELES – The tale of two halves didn’t turn out very well for the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night at the STAPLES Center.
Riding the coattails of LeBron James and Kyle Kuzma, the Los Angeles Lakers outscored the Mavs, 61-45, in the second half and went on to post a 114-103 victory over Dallas before a sellout crowd of 18,997. The loss snapped the Mavs’ three-game winning streak and dropped their record to 10-10 at the near-quarter mark of the season.
James scored 16 of his 28 points in the second half and Kuzma added 14 of his 15 points after intermission as the Lakers erased a 15-point first-half deficit and ran their record to 13-9. Meanwhile, four technical fouls and a few other questionable calls got under the Mavs’ skin and derailed their attempt to complete this two-game road trip with a perfect 2-0 record.
“We allowed them to control the pace of the game in the second half,” guard Devin Harris said. “The first half they like to push it hard, the second half they kind of like to slow it down and play more at their pace.
“We got some tough calls, but obviously we didn’t shoot well tonight, and defensively we kind of struggled. “
The Mavs shot only 39.5 percent from the field and misfired on 29 of their 39 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc. After the Mavs assumed a 45-30 lead early in the second quarter, someone pulled the plug on their offense and they were never the same thereafter.
“They made a run, which is going to happen in NBA games,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “The combination of second shots and turnovers really hurt us in stretches in the second half, and unfortunately our bad stretches were longer than our good stretches.
“Hey, it’s a 48-minute game and we weren’t good enough over 48 minutes, so a disappointing loss.”
DeAndre Jordan and Dennis Smith Jr. were each whistled for technical fouls. And J. J. Barea was ejected from the game after receiving his second technical foul with 4:08 remaining in the game – while he was on the bench.
Mavs proprietor Mark Cuban, who sat near his team’s bench, used his Twitter account to tweet: “All JJ said was “you guys are a disaster tonight” Didn’t yell it. Didn’t scream it. Was sitting on the bench. Wasn’t demonstrative.
“The ref was all the way across the court. No way anyone heard him. They threw him out.”
In the meantime, rookie Luka Doncic had his worst game of the season as he was just 2-of-13 from the field –he was 0-of-5 from 3-point range — and finished with a season-low six points to go with six rebounds, five assists, three steals and two blocks in rapid-like fashion against James.
“My shot was terrible, but we had a nice game today,” Doncic said. “We were fighting.
“We had some bad calls, but I think we did a good job.”
The Lakers trailed 58-53 at the half, but took the lead for good late in the third quarter at 73-72 following a basket by Kuzma. Former Mavs center Tyson Chandler followed with a hoop and Kuzma drilled a 3-pointer and the Lakers led 78-75 entering the fourth quarter.
“We played a solid first half of basketball,” said Wesley Matthews, who finished with 11 points. “We were attacking, our pace was good, and defensively we were locked in and playing well.
“In the second half we kind of let them control the tempo and it kind of got away from us. We started missing open shots, Kuzma got hot a little bit and that was the game.”
Three of the Mavs’ four technical fouls came in the fourth quarter as they got disgusted with some of the calls. It turned into a parade to the free throw line for the Lakers, who were 12-of-16 from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, Dwight Powell had 17 points and seven rebounds in just 17 minutes off the bench for the Mavs.
“We didn’t execute at both ends of the floor at certain times, and they did,” said Jordan, who collected eight points and 12 boards. “You have to give them credit — they played a helluva basketball game.
“But I think it started with us being stagnant. That’s something that we got to improve on, but a lot of that stuff was attention to detail.”
The Mavs started fast and led 17-6 a little over four minutes into the game. With Harrison Barnes tallying 13 of his game-high 29 points in the first quarter, the Mavs carried a 32-22 lead into the second quarter.
But that was when the Lakers started making their move, and the Mavs never really got a firm grip back on the game.
“It’s not so much what they did,” Matthews said. “If we get stops on the defensive end, then we can be more potent on offense.”
NOTES: In regards to rookie Luka Doncic, coach Rick Carlisle was asked if he could tap the breaks on Luka-mania, which seemingly has engulfed the NBA. “Look, a lot of that stuff is just noise,” Carlisle said. “There’s no man behind the curtain that can manipulate that stuff. I just don’t see how it can be done.” Carlisle also said of the extra attention Doncic has received during the Mavs’ many stops across the NBA, “He has no interest in the attention. That’s obvious. He’s been getting it for a long time because he’s been a special player for a long time. If you watch, his teammates really like him and they really like playing with him and they have great respect for him as rookie. The whole thing about all the attention is something that he’s very uncomfortable with, and our guys know that and we’re trying to get better as a basketball team.”. . Carlisle was discussing the difficulties of playing defense in the NBA today when he said: “In the old days when I came in the league in Detroit we had a helluva defensive team and we were holding teams in the 80’s. You got no shot of holding anybody in the 80’s now. If you can hold somebody to 100 it’s a great defensive night.”. . Forward Harrison Barnes on how the Mavs were able to go 8-2 after starting the season 2-7. “We played a lot of home games,” Barnes said. “We can win at home, we struggled a little bit on the road. We’ve been through a lot of adversity the last couple of years and I think we’re growing and building. Are we where we want to be? No. But I think we’re trending in the right direction.”. .The NBA, ESPN and Turner celebrated the life of Craig Sager during the Worldwide leader’s Jimmy V Week. Mavs coach Rick Carlisle and Lakers coach Luke Walton wore Sager-inspired jackets during Friday’s game. Even forward Dirk Nowitzki wore a Sager-inspired shirt. The jacket Carlisle wore was loaned to him by guard Wesley Matthews. Carlisle said: “Craig Sager was a pioneer, he was an icon, a guy that was all about the greatness of the NBA and living it every day.”. .The Mavs’ next game is Sunday at American Airlines Center against the Los Angeles Clippers, who lead the Western Conference with a 15-6 record.
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