The Mavs came into Friday night’s game in Los Angeles on a four game winning streak. LeBron James and the Lakers made sure that they left without one. Dallas opened up the game with a free flowing offense that resulted in a 45-30 lead with 8 minutes left in the second. But the wheels fell off there. The Lakers would pull within five points before half time by beating Dallas down the floor. After the break the ball stopped moving on offense for Dallas and the lane opened up for the Lakers. The result is a 114-103 loss, with LA leading by as many as 18 points in the fourth.

Dončić Struggles

Luka has been brilliant for the Mavs so far. He is a 19 year old rookie so there are going to be bad (or what I would call growth) games. Tonight was one of them. Dončić finished with six points while shooting two for thirteen from the floor, including missing all five of his three point attempts. He did add six rebounds, five assists, three steals, and two blocks to make up for his poor shooting. With how integral he has already become to the Mavs offense it is going to be hard for Dallas to win when he has games like this. Although he shot poorly he did have an awesome one-legged fade that should remind Mavs fans of somebody…

Luka's added the Dirk fade to his game 👀 pic.twitter.com/DLULDk85Iq

— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) December 1, 2018

Missing Defense

The Lakers scored 62 points in the paint tonight while shooting almost 50% from the floor. That insane efficiency and number of high percentage shots was due to two things: the Lakers pushing the ball in transition and the Mavs inability to defend the lane. LA dug themselves out of a 15 point hole by grabbing rebounds and immediately pushing the ball down the floor. If they didn’t score directly off the fast break then they brought it out and initiated a quick offense to get a bucket. Most of the buckets out of half court sets came in the lane as a result of the Mavs trying to get themselves together on defense. DeAndre Jordan also had one of his now common bad defensive games. The Lakers were on the second game of a back to back out ran the floor against a rested Mavs team. Dallas will want this game back, as it pushes them to three games behind the Lakers in the win column. The Mavs currently sit 8th in the West with a 10-10 record.

The Power of the Referee

Using the officiating as a reason for a loss is futile. It works just as well as when players argue personal fouls they are called for. Both teams were the victim of an officiating crew that wanted to leave their own mark on the game tonight. No, the refs aren’t the reason the Mavs lost or the reason the Lakers won. But they are the reason the game had absolutely no flow in the second half. The real losers were the fans who had to watch, victims of a support entity that is supposed to be manage the game in the shadows and not control all the action. The former is what Scott Foster and his crew did on Friday. In total there were 54 personal fouls and 8 technical fouls called. JJ Barea was ejected from the bench. The number of fouls per game in the NBA this season is 22. Foster’s crew almost tripled that if you include the technicals. They have just as much film to watch as the Mavs do.

The Mavs will host the first place Clippers on Sunday December 12th at 6:00 PM on Fox Sports Southwest.