Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Sat, Jan 24, the Los Angeles Lakers continued their Grammys road trip as they traveled to the heart of Texas to take on the Dallas Mavericks, who were playing some of their best basketball of the season in spite of not having Anthony Davis available with a left hand injury. For the second time in the past year, Luka Doncic was going to play as a visiting team player at American Airlines Center, where the Mavs fans there still have a place of love for him. But the franchise has moved on as Cooper Flagg has become the cornerstone of the future for Dallas, which also has some good young supporting cast players with solid numbers around Flagg. The Lakers beat the Mavericks in their first matchup of the season in an NBA Cup group play game at Crypto.com Arena 129-119 and were looking to keep themselves in a good position in the tight Western Conference standings. With a mostly healthy roster(with the exception of Austin Reaves), the Purple & Gold looked to continue their longest road trip of the season following a detour loss to the Clippers at the Intuit Dome on Thursday with a strong win in a place where Luka played in for seven-plus seasons.

The first quarter started out close, with Doncic scoring 12 points in continuing his trend of being the leading scorer in opening quarter scoring in the NBA this season. The Lakers surged ahead with a couple of buckets by Rui Hachimura and held a nine-point lead at the end of the first. Three-point shooting was high for both teams in this game, as Marcus Smart made a couple for Los Angeles and the former Laker Max Christie had a few three balls himself. The Purple & Gold had a 13-point lead at halftime with an efficient two quarters of scoring.

However, in the second half, momentum swung towards the Mavericks, who forced turnovers against the Lakers and scored loads of points on a massive scoring run. L.A only scored 14 points in the third quarter, while Dallas had a big margin of 35 points that propelled them to an eight-point lead. The Mavs had contributions from guys like guard Brandon Williams(20 points off the bench), forwards Caleb Martin and Naji Marshall and Christie. Building its lead up to 14 points, Dallas was in firm control. But then, the Lakers started to gain offensive momentum after LeBron James’ offensive game awakened. Even though they got down by 15 points with 7 minutes left, the Purple & Gold started to chip away with some points by James and Smart. Jake LaRavia then made a huge three-pointer to get the Lakers down by five and a couple of baskets in between four free throws made by Christie. Hachimura then made a couple of huge buckets, including an and-1 three pointer and another three-ball to put Los Angeles ahead. A missed free throw by Flagg led to a clutch offensive rebound tip shot by Smart and then LeBron made a tip shot to push the Lakers lead to five. Luka sealed off the game with four points and the Lakers defeated the Mavericks 116-110.

This was an incredible comeback victory to push the Purple & Gold back up to ten games above .500. Luka Doncic continued his dominance against Dallas as he scored 33 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out 11 assists. Four other Lakers scored in double figures as LeBron scored 17(11 in the fourth quarter) with eight boards and five assists, Hachimura scored 17 points with four made three-pointers, and LaRavia and Smart scored 13 points each. Now at 27-17, the Lakers’ next game on their Grammy Road Trip will come against the Chicago Bulls at United Center on Mon, Jan 26 on a solemn anniversary for the Purple & Gold. Then, the road trip shifts to the Eastern Time Zone for games against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Washington Wizards, New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets. A good Saturday primetime win was a splendid accomplishment for a Los Angeles Lakers team with a lot of games left to play before the All-Star Break.