The Los Angeles Lakers went into the fourth quarter of their game against the Dallas Mavericks trailing by 20 with the contest seemingly out of reach. The Lakers were in the second game of a back-to-back and weren’t playing with much energy during the first three quarters.
Instead of packing it in for the night though, the Lakers keep fighting and made a furious comeback in the fourth quarter. The Lakers fought all the way back to take the lead in the final minute, although they were unable to close it out.
With the Mavericks trailing by two, Kyrie Irving drilled a big 3-pointer to give them a one-point lead with 21 seconds to play. The Lakers opted to not call a timeout as Davin Ham did not want to allow Dallas to bring in defense-first players.
LeBron James had the ball with Irving on him although Richaun Holmes was ready to double in the post if he drove the lane. Seeing that, James opted to throw an alley-oop to Anthony Davis, who had Luka Doncic near him.
It was a poor pass from James, however, allowing Holmes to get his fingers on it and Doncic to come up with the steal, resulting in the loss.
After the game, James took responsibility for his poor pass in that situation.
“Left it a little short. Left it a little short,” James said. “Right read, just as a quarterback, I left it short. I didn’t lead my receiver and got picked off.”
Davis would also explain his vantage point of the play. “That’s a play that we do all the time,” he said.
“Holmes was going to double team and I flashed right in front of the rim and we usually get that lob. But as Bron was throwing it, he kind of retreated a little bit and got a piece of the ball. Then Luka got a piece as well after Holmes tipped it, we all kind of touched it afterwards. But Holmes just got a finger or two on the ball.”
While it’s unfortunate that the Lakers came up short, James liked that they came back, specifically locking in on the defensive side of the court.
“We gave ourselves a fighting chance but it’s kind of tough when you go down that many points, especially when you’re going into the fourth against a high-powered offense. But I liked our defense in the last 12 minutes. We just got to be better for the first 36.”
Getting off to poor starts has become a theme for the Lakers this season though and LeBron knows having to fight their way back lightly is not something they want to make a habit of.
“It’s not ideal, but it’s good to have it. But it’s not ideal.”
James discusses fourth quarter scoring
James has been phenomenal in fourth quarters this season, leading the league at 9.8 points per game. He had 13 in the final period against Dallas and discussed why he tried to make a push despite being down by 20.
“Well I love the fourth quarter, obviously. I just hate going into that situation down what we were down. Just tried to see what we could do those first 4-5 minutes to see if we could make a push and we were able to do that the first 4-5 minutes and pretty much throughout the rest of the game.”
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