Wednesday night at 5:30 p.m. PT, the Los Angeles Lakers hosted the Dallas Mavericks in a rare tipoff. This was the third meeting between the two teams this season; the Mavericks had prevailed in the initial two meetings.
In uniform, every celebrity was present, including LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, and Luka Doncic. In the end, it was the Lakers who emerged victorious, coasting to a 127-110 triumph that brought them back to.500 at 21-21.
Big men got off to a strong start in this contest, as Dereck Lively II scored the first six points for Dallas and Anthony Davis scored for Los Angeles with a dunk.
When the score was 10-10 and the game was deadlocked, the Mavericks scored seven consecutive points to seize early control. Davis, on the other hand, began to gather momentum after that, contributing to his team’s closeness with two buckets until James began to make strides and they regained the lead.
Despite the early success of James and Davis, other reserve players such as Max Christie and Rui Hachimura began to make contributions as well, and Los Angeles held a 32-26 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Both teams had a terrible start to the second quarter, committing turnovers and missing open opportunities. Doncic eventually regained his footing, and from that moment forward, things became more open up front for Los Angeles as Austin Reaves scored five consecutive points.
Following a Flagrant 1 infraction committed by Taurean Prince against Grant Williams, the Mavericks were able to effectively conclude the half and reduce their deficit to 55-53 heading into the locker room.
James entered the third quarter in an aggressive mood, producing a three-point play. From that point forward, D’Angelo Russell began to gain momentum with five consecutive points, and Davis extended the lead to double digits with a jumper.
The Lakers maintained their lead-expanding efforts thereafter, as Russell sank an additional triple and Reaves completed a transition alley-oop to Prince. Following James’s burial of his own three, the margin ballooned to twenty-two.
From that point forward, Dallas scored eight consecutive points, but Davis maintained his dominance on both ends as Los Angeles entered the fourth and final quarter up 97-80.
In the early stages of the fourth quarter, the Mavericks could not have made a comeback attempt to reclaim the contest. However, Russell ensured that this did not occur by continuing to pile it on from deep and extending the lead to 23 in the fourth minute.
