MyDallasMavs: Mavs Try to Fight it Out but Fall to the Lakers 96-91

It's no surprise that the Mavs and Lakers are battling for a spot in the Western Conference. We all know that year after year these two teams both strive to top each other. With the Lakers just a game and a half behind the Mavs' second seed, the two teams battled it out tonight; but the outcome was not what Mavs' fans would have wanted. The Lakers got the 96-91 win and are now only a half a game behind the Mavs.

The first quarter started with the Lakers up 6-2. The Mavs started 1 for 11, but quickly regrouped and eventually were 4 of 7 with the 11-10 lead. In the first quarter there were over 10 lead changes and no one led more than 4. A huge portion of the Lakers shots were in the paint.

At the end of the second quarter, Roddy committed two consecutive turnovers leading to a shot by Kobe and a 3-pointer by Artest. This gave the Lakers their largest lead of the game at 8 points after a 9-0 run. The Mavs' ball movement became very sloppy and the Lakers tight defense could definitely be a reason for this. Not only was ball movement a problem, but the Mavs offense was off, shooting only 38.6% at the half. Fortunately, after such a messy first half, the Mavs were only down by 6 points, 50-44. Much of this was due to Marion's outstanding performance in the first half as he racked up 15 points and 6 rebounds to keep the Mavs in the game. Kidd sat out the end of the second quarter as he already had 3 personal fouls.

Late in the third, Kobe went to the locker room with a sprained ankle. At this point, the Mavs had seven blocks while the Lakers had one. The quarter ended with the Lakers up 73-65.

In the fourth, Kobe headed back to the Lakers bench. At this point, the Lakers nearly doubled the Mavs' points in the paint, 54-28. Gasol fouled the Mavs with 2 minutes left to play and Dallas hit both their free throws cutting the Lakers lead to just 89-85. Dirk made a bad pass to Chandler followed by a Lakers' bucket. A miss by Fisher led to a dunk by Marion, and the score was then 92-89. After a couple of fouls on both ends, and careless mistakes by the Mavs, the Lakers took the 96-91 win; the Lakers are now just half a game within second seed.

It seemed as if Dirk and Marion were the only guys who came to play tonight. Marion led the team with a double-double of 21 points and 10 rebounds while Dirk was right behind him with 19 points and 7 rebounds. As for the rest of the team, no one scored above 6 points, which is unusual for the Mavs; especially since their bench normally scores a great amount of points. Roddy had an off night as he went scoreless shooting 0-6 from the field and 0-2 from 3-point range.

As for the Lakers, Gasol led the team with 16 points, Bynum had a double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Artest racked up 10 points. Kobe had 12 points and shot just 5 for 16 from the field and 0 for 3 from 3-point range. Fisher was another player who had an off night. He went scoreless and was 0 for 5 from the field and 0 for 1 from 3-point range.

Next, the Mavs will travel to Oregon to face the Portland Trailblazers Tuesday night.