Stick A Fork In ‘Em: Can Doncic, Mavs Finish Off LeBron’s Lakers?

The Dallas Mavericks will try to add salt to the Los Angeles Lakers’ wounds on Tuesday night.

Dalton Trigg | Mar 29, 2022

As the 2021-22 NBA regular season nears its end, things are trending in two completely different directions for the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers ahead of Tuesday night’s head-to-head matchup.

The Mavs are 46-29 and have moved up to fourth in the Western Conference standings with a real change of catching the third-place Golden State Warriors. The Lakers, on the other hand, are 31-43 and have fallen to 10th in the West after losing to the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday night.

The Lakers have lost seven of their last 10 games, and both LeBron James (ankle) and Anthony Davis (foot) have been listed as doubtful to play against the Mavs on the NBA's official injury report. If that holds up, it will mean we only got to see James and Mavs superstar Luka Doncic duke it out only once this season, as Doncic missed the first matchup in December due to an ankle injury of his own.

LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers — Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers, Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks — Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Although there are a handful of games left to play, could the Mavs potentially put an early end to the Lakers' misery at American Airlines Center on Tuesday night? The Lakers have looked like a team that has mostly given up for a while now – whether its intentional or not – and this game could be one where the Mavs stick a fork in them, so to speak.

The Lakers are just a half-game ahead of the 11th-place San Antonio Spurs (31-44), who have won four games in a row as the season winds down. A Mavs' win over the Lakers would put L.A. in a tie with San Antonio, but the Spurs would still take over the 10th spot due to owning the tiebreaker. Despite the season series between the Spurs and Lakers being tied at 2-2, San Antonio has the better conference record by 4.5 games.

Both games the Mavs have played against the Lakers this season have been close ones, but it really feels like Dallas is overdue for a convincing win in the series, especially if James and Davis are going to be sidelined. In a 109-104 loss to the Mavs on March 2, the Lakers trailed by as many as 21 points before James turned back the clock in the third quarter to get his team back in the game.

If the Mavs do win on Tuesday night, the psychological damage of being pushed outside the Play-In Tournament's boundaries might be too much for this already-tired Lakers team to overcome.

Published Mar 29, 2022

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.