Lakers 108, Mavericks 104
March 2nd, 2008, 3:39 pm · 3 Comments · posted by KEVIN DING, OCREGISTER.COM
LOS ANGELES – The Lakers won’t get another major test for 12 days – when they start a trip to New Orleans, Houston, Dallas and Utah – so they sought to make this one count Sunday against Dallas at Staples Center.
And they did push past the Mavericks down the stretch with an improved defense but mostly Kobe Bryant playing his usual role of closer in full character. He helped make up for Lamar Odom’s late-game disappearing act and a game effort from defending NBA MVP Dirk Nowitzki.
Bryant had a season-high 52 points, playing all but 1:46 of the early fourth quarter. Jason Kidd’s missed foul shot with 10 seconds left in overtime could’ve forged a 105-105 tie after Pau Gasol’s inexcusable foul on Kidd’s layup.
ODOM ON NOWITZKI
Although the Lakers don’t consider Odom a defensive stopper, they do like him matching up on Nowitzki, who thrived against the Lakers last season when they were missing Odom to injury. Odom generally did well Sunday, especially shuffling up to bother Nowitzki on his pet step-back move, but faltered late.
SASHA INSIDE
Sasha Vujacic, who worked on expanding his game beyond 3-point shooting over the summer at Phil Jackson’s behest, made layups under duress on consecutive plays early in the second quarter – but was too quick on his jumper thereafter.
LET’S GET PHYSICAL
Dallas brought increased physicality but didn’t draw a flagrant foul for Nowitzki’s blow to Derek Fisher’s head or a running shoulder block from Erick Dampier to Bryant.
NEXT
Lakers at Sacramento, 7 p.m. Tuesday, KCAL/9, KLAC/570.
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
The Lakers still seems to be in a slump and the sheer determination of KB24 made them escape a loss to the Mavs. It suspect that Lakers problem is with teams who possesses big time banger in the middle like the Mavs and Blazers. If this would be the case PJ must find solutions for this since Boston as possible east champs have players like that in Kendricks and PJ Brown.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:00 am
Are the Lakers in a slump or do they simply not look as unbeatable playing good teams versus the stiffs they beat in their win streak?
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
A couple things about yesterday’s game. I know the refs gave the Lakers 50 free throw attempts and the way Dallas was playing they could have given them 100 but they can’t call them all or it would be chaos. But there were to calls on Dampier that should have been message calls, they were flagrant and one could have been a
flagrant 2. But they chose not to call them flagrant. You’ll have to ask them why. The other thing was L.O. and his free throws. He has gotten into the habit of missing the first and making the second about half of the time.He was 2 for 6 yesterday. But worse he laughs when he misses. Lamar- It’s not funny O.K..Jackson should fine you $5,000
every time you miss a free throw and smile or laugh. Maybe then you’d get the message that games are won and lost at the line.