NBA: Dallas Mavericks vs. LA Lakers Preview, Odds, Prediction

The Dallas Mavericks head for LA to face the struggling Lakers. Before the start of the year, LeBron and his boys were the top favorites for winning the title. Fast forward a few months, and we see them battling for the play-in place, outside the playoff zone. The word “chemistry” is something the purple and gold don’t have in their dictionary, and if they continue to play like this, be sure that they won’t be among ten teams in the West. The Mavs, on the other side, are solid and play decent basketball, which eventually put them in fifth place of the Western Conference.

Preview

Dallas Mavericks (36-25, -200) have four wins in the last five games, and they won seven of the previous nine events, which makes them a red-hot team. At the moment, they are fifth in the West, which is a bit higher than many of the analysts expected. They even have solid chances of reaching the fourth spot, but on the other side, they could be eclipsed by the Nuggets.

Luka Doncic entered his usual mode, looking unstoppable in the attack. He would post one 50+point game and is still the undisputed leader of the Mavericks’ offense. However, we need to say that he has massive help coming from Jalen Brunson, who took over many duties from the Slovenian, allowing him to have more freedom on both ends of the floor.

The Mavs’ last game was in San Francisco, where they beat the Warriors, 107-101, with Luka dropping 34 points and 11 boards. Spencer Dinwiddie had 24 off the bench, 10-for-14 from the field, proving that he will be a major contribution to the Mavs’ roster.

The LA Lakers (27-33, +155) managed to win only three of the last 12 games, which puts them only ahead of the sorry Rockets when looking at the record during that stretch. James and the boys are very, very bad in recent times, and we really don’t know what the reason for that is.

At first, we thought that Russell Westbrook’s arrival disrupted everything, but it seems now that the roots of the problem are deeper than that. LAL was shredded into pieces against the New Orleans Pelicans, 123-95, with the entire Crypto.com Arena booing to the players.

James had 32 points, Westbrook had 16, while Carmelo ended the night with 13 points. AD was out once again, but we doubt that his presence on the court would bring any improvement to the Lakers in this event.

Head to Head

This is the second game this season between the Mavs and the LAL. The first one saw the Lakers triumphing in Dallas, 107-104, but the hosts were without Luka. James had 24 points, Brody 23 and Davis 20, while on the other side, Brunson scored 25 for the Mavs.

Prediction

The Lakers are in deep trouble, and we think they can’t beat the Mavs in this event. As mentioned before, their chemistry is terrible, and the purple and gold have too many glitches in their game on both ends of the floor. Therefore, our pick here is Dallas to win.

Pick: Dallas wins

Here is the preview for the Atlanta Hawks vs. Boston Celtics game.