Lakers Trashed in Second Half Again
It's not over, but it's over. It's Dallas 97, Lakers 88 with four-plus minutes left,
As they did in San Antonio two days ago, the Lakers played very nicely for a half (down by a point) ... then let things get away from them in the third quarter. They were down 17 in this one before they put together a rally to make it respectable.
We didn't really expect the Lakers to win either of these games. San Antonio was 19-4 at home, the Mavericks were 18-3, so a team missing three (Bynum, Ariza, Radmanovic) of its top nine players can't expect to go in and win on the other guy's court.
The key here is for the Lakers not to implode. Not to panic, because Bynum is gone for another six-plus weeks.
It would be nice to win at home against Cleveland and LeBron James on Sunday. And really nice (if not a requirement) to win at home against the Knicks on Tuesday.
Then they go out on the nine-game road trip with at least something good in their short-term memory banks.
The trip starts with games at Detroit and Toronto, and those will be tough. So if the Lakers don't beat LeBron and the Knicks ... they could be going back toward .500 in a hurry.
In the backs of the Lakers' minds is their collapse at this exact point in time a year ago. After 39 games. That could prey on their minds.
Lamar Odom and Luke Walton are two key players here. Neither is contributing significantly right now, and both could and should. Odom is particularly disappointing because he could do so much more ... but suffers long lapses of passivity and maybe just plain laziness.
Odom had four points and two rebounds on 2-of-9 shooting -- in 32 minutes. That's horrible for a guy with his talent and his salary ($13.2 million).
Kobe played like a madman ... which generally is good, but he was out of control at some key moments in the second half, and took a couple of scary spills. He scored 40 and played 45 minutes again, as he did on Wednesday.
It's over, now. Dallas 112-105. Lakers now 27-14 at the midway point of the season.