Game 20: Los Angeles Lakers (17-2) vs. Dallas Mavericks (12-6) - 4:00 PM ET

[TyCobb]

Only thing worse than the Lakers today was the refs. That was the worst I can remember.

[Landsberger]

Only thing worse than the Lakers today was the refs. That was the worst I can remember.

That stretch where KCP got jobbed on 3 straight possessions was some really suspect officiating. I don't typically get into the officials much but that was 3 absolutely obvious calls that went against us.

48 second half points by us.... today they hit the 3 but I'd still take a 7 game series with them shooting 49 a game.

[snaquille oatmeal]

Can’t win them all

Losing to Luka isn’t the worst loss.

Lol
There are some in the GB that will interpret this loss as the Lakers being a lotto team.

[Spanish_Laker]

Our perimeter D has been terrible once again (as it was in Memphis, NOLA recently), allowing 17 3s, some of them by random scrubs like "Justin Jackson". Furthermore, awful minutes management by our coach, why leaving LeBron and AD both on the court with the game lost? Another game with +35 minutes for both...

Gotta bounce back and get the W in Denver. When was the last time we won there? the Kobe-Pau glorious days?

[BEazy]

We really got to stop giving teams the 3 point line so much. Refs are still not calling **** for us.

I hope we don't have the 49ers narrative that we can't beat good teams but we can only beat the weak teams. That's what it looks like right now.

[BlueSan]

Our perimeter D has been terrible once again (as it was in Memphis, NOLA recently), allowing 17 3s, some of them by random scrubs like "Justin Jackson". Furthermore, awful minutes management by our coach, why leaving LeBron and AD both on the court with the game lost? Another game with +35 minutes for both...

Gotta bounce back and get the W in Denver. When was the last time we won there? the Kobe-Pau glorious days?

Justin is our best 3pt shooter actually


You had an off night I wouldnt worry too much this is NBA and when you have an off night against league's current best offense its usually a L

[Landsberger]

I don't have any worries about the team. We're dinged up at the moment and needed a wake up call IMHO. We hit them in the mouth early but couldn't keep up the intensity. Letting Powell and Wright get the energy going in the mid second quarter was the turning point.

One constant for us this year has been giving up offensive rebounds. Today we were giving them up with LeBron, Dwight and Davis in the game... no excuse for that. Those second chance points began the turn of the game and gave Dallas confidence.

LeBron was very energetic at the beginning only to fade a as the game wore on. Unusual for us in that we had a fast start and then faltered. It's been the opposite of late.

Watching parts of the game again on the DVR you can see Kuzma was basically standing on defense and offense. That ankle is still bugging him. Why he played is question that needs to be asked. Every shot was 4" short as well.

Caruso had his issues at times defensively finding the shooters but he finally showed a little something offensively. Some of his points were after the outcome was decided but it's good for him to see the ball go through the hoop regardless.

Larger issue for us is the lack of ball movement. Today you could see the difference between a team that moves the ball (many wide open shots from the perimeter) vs one that doesn't (a lot of contested shots late in the clock). Hopefully Vogel has enough weight with LeBron to get him to play off the ball for stretches and let the offensive motion create the shots. It's hard for guys like Kuz who feed off of motion to just sit in the corner possession after possession. We need to find a way to get him to 15 points or so to have some diversification in our scoring. First we need to get him fully healthy and also get Bradley back as well.

The Denver game will hopefully start a new streak.

[danfantastk32]

Missed game...but it sounds like I missed a stinker. I blame the sunday whites. Hate em...have always hated them, and it seems like we lose in them constantly.

Got plenty more rough teams ahead. Not the start to Dec I hoped for.

[Beethoven]

Having a bad Sunday. Loss and now my car battery died. Got a jump by road side service at my home and now at firestone getting a new battery arggfhhh

[Rakkasan]

I've been saying for the entire season, the Lakers need to find an allstar level third option. A 35 yo LeBron and a fragile AD, and a bunch of below average one dimensional role players will only get you to the second round, maybe.

[Kilroy]

I'm worried... Honestly, I have not been terribly impressed by any of our wins since the Toronto loss aside from the one against the Wizzards.
I just think that while we've been winning, they were sketchy wins with a ton of flaws. I haven't seen us play a complete solid game yet this season, other than maybe the first week. We're always giving up too many easy points or taking bad shots or something and letting even bad teams put it to us.
Right now, I don't want to face Dallas in a 7gm series... That would be fine if Dallas was the Clippers, and no disrespect, but we weren't supposed to be struggling this bad against them. And not just Dallas, but pretty much everyone other than the Wizzards and GSW.

We miss Bradley dearly. We're not getting what I hoped from Kuz. Green, McGee, and Howard have all produced but not with the consistency or volume I'd hoped. KCP and Rondo have been solid, but not really game-changers. Caruso has been consistent but he is what he is... Cook has been inconsistent. Daniels has been non-existent.

We just seem like a deeply flawed team that's succeeding on overwhelming talent from our 2 stars right now, but that's not a recipe for lasting success.

It just seems like we have some fundamental system issues. Love the D, but sometimes it seems like we're sacrificing lots of offense for a slightly higher defensive rating.

[Sedale Threatt]

Well, you nailed the main one: We have two all-time greats, playing at MVP level, surrounded by a bunch of spare parts. Some of those spare parts are much, much better than others. But there is an absolutely enormous drop-off once you get past LeBron and Davis. Obviously we're way better than we showed today -- hopefully that's about as bad a half as we'll play all season -- but I also think we've been overachieving up to this point. Unless we make defense our calling card, and get back to the consistent, team-wide focus we saw in the first few weeks (losing Bradley didn't help, but I don't see him being an enormous difference-maker whose return will single-handedly restore us), I don't know what we can do systemically to overcome said drop-off.

[nzahir]

Currently who do we trust come playoff time?

Lebron, AD, Green are the 3 best guys rn. Im pretty sure I can rely on Avery and Dwight (not talking about health here). So that is 5 guys

MAYBE Caruso. Need to see more.

Cant trust Mcgee, KCP, Rondo, Kuzma, Cook, or Daniels.

You need 8-9 guys you can really rely on come playoff time.

We are 5-6. Say we are at 6 if Caruso keeps improving.

3 guys short.

Kuzma can get us a piece back who can get us 1 more guy.

Can we move a few spare parts, THT, and 2nd (s) for another piece? Maybe.

Puts us at 8 guys. We need 1 more at least from buyout market

[Landsberger]

I see us as underachievers to this point offensively. LeBron and Davis are clicking at about a 70% rate but getting others integrated (especially Kuzma) has proven difficult. The defense will be there and the offense can get a lot better.

My largest gripe with the offense is ball movement. We are constantly not getting the ball below the 3 point line until there are less than 10 seconds on the clock. A lot our our assists are after just one pass. That becomes easy to defend and I believe that's the difference we're seeing as the season wears on. We need to get the ball moving around the perimeter and have Davis moving from side to side rather than standing at the 3 point line to start a set. IMHO, Davis should take 3's as a very small part of his game because it's basically letting the other team off the hook. Kuzma isn't adjusting to the lack of touches and a role where he's just another "Daniels" standing in the corner. They have to integrate him into games with some sets that get him going right away. You can see him lose focus when he goes 4 or 5 possessions in a row without any sort of touch. Either get him more in the flow or send him somewhere for another stand and shoot guy.

Howard, Rondo and Kuzma should be a very good bench group. In time I think they will be.

The biggest gap we have is that we could use another player who can get to and finish at the hoop. Rondo can do it but isn't what he used to be and Bron is about the only other one other than the occasional Kuzma or KCP drive. We miss another guy who can break a defense down.

I think we will be fine.

[TKainZero]

Can’t win them all

Losing to Luka isn’t the worst loss.

Lol
There are some in the GB that will interpret this loss as the Lakers being a lotto team.

The first game was tight, and you know Luka wanted to beat LeBron.

It’s a fine loss. I have no grievances over it

[Beethoven]

We got serious issues is what i hope the media and general board starts chattering. That way we light a fuse under the team's ass

[Dr Aki]

Read on Twitter

Thanks Magic

[SlimShady83]

lol you guys....

I had a feeling we would lose this one

[LAKESHOW]

We ran out of gas. That load management is for real. Coach must.force implementation plan

[SweetTouch]

Lmao the overreaction over a loss is crazy

Y’all some chicken littles

That said, we lost I can’t believe it. They are supposed to win every single gane
No exceptions

Am I doing it right