WHAT HAD HAPPENED: Mavericks blow 27-point lead, fall in disheartening fashion to upstart Lakers, 111-108
Andre Johnson 
MAVS MELTDOWN
There’s no other way to put this.
The Mavericks clearly blew it Sunday afternoon against a Los Angeles Lakers team that is diligently fighting for playoff positioning during the season’s pivotal stretch run.
For a while, it seemed as if Dallas was well on its way to running visiting Los Angeles out of American Airlines Center after limiting the Lakers to 32 percent shooting from the field in the first half and building what supposed to have been a commanding 27-point lead with inside of seven minutes remaining in the second quarter.
But just as they done on several occasions this season, the Mavericks failed to close out the opposition, this time against a surging Lakers squad that entered Sunday’s contest 3 ½ games out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the rugged Western Conference.
The end result for Dallas: a disastrous 111-108 setback before an announced sellout crowd of 20,411 witnesses, a rather disheartening turn of events from which a seemingly dejected Mavs team must quickly recover, in large part because of their brutal schedule over the regular season’s final 20 games.
“It started way before the third,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said after Sunday’s nationally-televised meltdown. “We lost our rhythm in the sense of just playing our game and not worrying about the other elements. Our rhythm there in the first two-and-a-half (quarters), we were playing at a high level on both ends, offensively and defensively. Then we just got a little distracted with the whistle. We’ve just got to be better with that.”
Anthony Davis (game-high 30 points on 12-of-20 shooting) and LeBron James (26 points on 10-of-23 field goals) combined for 56 points, including having accounted for 21 of the Lakers’ 33 points in the final frame to help complete the comeback and send the Mavericks to a 1-3 mark since the team acquired Kyrie Irving in blockbuster trade from Brooklyn 20 days ago.
DIFFICULT TO STOMACH
In dropping its third game in its last four outings, Dallas (32-20) — playing the second of a six-game homestand — plummeted to the sixth spot in the West.
It was, in fact, a tale of two halves for the Mavericks, who wasted little time setting tone, particularly throughout an opening quarter that was highlighted by Dallas connecting on 7-of-13 shots from 3-point range while Los Angeles (29-32) misfired on each of its 10 attempts from beyond the arc during that stretch.
In squandering its biggest lead of the season against a Lakers team that now only trails them by 2 ½ games in the conference standings, the Mavericks got little help from their starters as Irving and fellow superstar Luka Dončić combined for 57 points, but were limited to a combined 21 points in the second half.
The rest of Dallas’ starters managed a combined 18 points on 6-of-15 shooting for the game, a dissatisfactory output for a team several media pundits sensed had progressed considerably as a unit since acquiring Irving.
Dončić, the NBA’s leading scorer, finished with a team-high 26 points on 10-of-22 shooting and Irving registered 21 points on 8-of-22 field goals in 37-plus minutes for Dallas, which went cold after intermission and was outscored, 64-47, in the second half.
Dončić, meanwhile, applauded James’ inspiring effort that included the NBA’s all-time leading scorer amassing 11 of his 14 second-half points in the pivotal fourth.
“It’s unbelievable,” Dončić said of James. “For a guy like that to do those things at 38 and in his 20th season in the NBA, it’s just unbelievable. He is the scoring leader and has accomplished pretty much everything there is to accomplish in basketball. It is pretty amazing to play against a guy like that.”
Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 17 points off the bench and Christian Wood added 14 for the Mavs, who shot a frigid 36 percent from the field in the second half.
For the Lakers, winners of three straight, four starters finished in double figures, including Dennis Schroder and Jarred Vanderbilt, who scored 16 and 15 points, respectively, for Los Angeles, which won its first game in three meetings against Dallas on the season.
The teams’ final regular season meeting is March 17 at Crypto.com Arena. — Andre Johnson
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