The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 104-101 on Wednesday night (Thursday, Manila time) after blowing a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter thanks to 28 points from Kyrie Irving, who also made the game-winning 3-pointer with 22 seconds remaining.
In addition to scoring 16 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter and making the game-winning tip-in with 1:16 remaining for the Lakers, NBA lifetime scoring leader LeBron James also committed an error with four seconds remaining and missed the game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Irving rescues the Mavericks’ day.
In the last minute, Luka Doncic and James both missed a 3-point attempt before Irving calmly made his fourth of the game close to the Lakers bench. After a careless pass from James to the basket was intercepted by Doncic, Irving made two free throws and James missed another three-point effort.
The Mavs, who missed 16 of their 19 shots in the fourth quarter, were led by Doncic’s 30 points. Despite outscoring Dallas 30–13 in the fourth quarter, Los Angeles was unable to secure a victory.
Anthony Davis finished the fourth quarter without scoring, finishing with only 10 points and 14 rebounds.
With James leading a sustained run, the Mavs missed their first 11 attempts in the fourth quarter, despite Dallas leading 91-71 against the step-slow Lakers. Towards the end, the Lakers missed four free throws that would have brought the score closer.
The Mavericks, who are among the NBA’s top scoring teams, defeated the Lakers on the road for the fourth time in a row behind Josh Green’s 15 points.
For the Lakers, who had won six straight games over the previous two weeks, D’Angelo Russell had fifteen points and Austin Reaves had seventeen. This season, Los Angeles has only suffered one home loss in nine games.
With only nine healthy rotation players for their sixth game in nine days, the step-slow Lakers were mostly controlled by Dallas for the opening three quarters.