Mavericks Struggle Against Lakers

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Looking to extend their win streak to five, the Dallas Mavericks were defeated by the Los Angeles Lakers Wednesday night with a final score of 109 – 93. The Lakers ended their two-game losing streak by claiming a second quarter lead and never letting go.

Kobe Bryant led the Lakers with 30 points and has scored 30 or more points in 21 games this season. Mavs forward Shawn Marion, the man responsible for guarding Bryant, missed his third consecutive game with a sore knee. That put the onus on Jason Kidd.

"We love the fight in him (Kidd) but if Kobe gets to his spot, he can just elevate and shoot over him and Trix (Marion) is like 6'8 or 6'9. He can stay in front of him and still contest the shot. You gotta love Kidd, he's trying but like I said, if Kobe gets to his spot there is nothing you can do," said Maverick forward Dirk Nowitzki.

PLAY: Dirk Nowitzki post game comments (iPad iPhone click here)

In regards to accuracy, Dirk's performance was not as stellar as usual but still ended up in double digits, netting 26 points of 24 shots.  Dirk and Jason Terry were the only two Mavs players in double digits. Terry dropped 23 points coming off the bench.

The poor defense and rebounding was the downfall for the Mavs tonight. Dallas allowed the Lakers to shoot 48% and gave up over 100 points for only the 8^th time this season. The Mavericks sorely missed the defense of Shawn Marion and the middle presence of Brendan Haywood.

"Defensively we just weren't good enough over the long course of the game. I thought we were aggressive and made good things happen early, but its them being good and us not being good enough tonight," claimed Mavs Head Coach Rick Carlisle.

The Mavs were outdone on the boards by a total of 46 to 29 points. Pau Gasol's impact on the game was huge for the Lakers. Gasol hit 13 of 16 shots for 27 points while grabbing nine of 46 rebounds.  With no Haywood, the plan was to take out Andrew Bynum by forcing him to get rid of the ball.

"Obviously without Haywood, we tried to go after Bynum," said Nowitzki, "We didn't want to give him 5 or 6 dribbles and bury Ian (Ian Mahinmi) and B Wright (Brandan Wright) down there so we went after him a little bit to try and make him pass out."

Bynum claimed 9 points and 7 rebounds. One big man for Dallas who did not have as successful of an evening was Lamar Odom. Odom had another mediocre night logging 23 minutes scoring one point, one rebound and one assist.

"He struggled. He wasn't the only one who struggled though. Look, we're going to stay positive and we are going to keep moving forward. He's going to keep working and he's got to stay ready to play because we are going to need him," said Carlisle.

Mavs got away from what got them four straight victories leading up to Wednesday's contest… a quick tempo by Roddy B.

Beaubois only put up 6 points. He averaged 16 points a game in the previous four games.

"This has been one of the more difficult teams for him (Beaubois) to play against if you look at his history. But I will remind everybody that the last two games were against pretty damn good teams too and he played terrific. We've got to stay the course with him and to be fair, we have to look at larger blocks of time. We've got to have discretion on when we get the microscope out," explained Carlisle.

Brian Waddle is the Producer for the K&C Masterpiece heard on 105.3 The Fan on Sunday mornings from 9am to 1pm.

(Copyright 2012 CBS Local. All Rights Reserved.)

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• Los Angeles Lakers
• NBA