Lakers player grades: L.A. falls short to Cooper Flagg and Mavericks

With Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves sidelined due to injury, and with Marcus Smart still unable to return from an ankle injury, what's left of the Los Angeles Lakers took the court on Sunday against a struggling Dallas Mavericks team. While the Mavericks were arguably even more short-handed than the Lakers, they have rookie phenom Cooper Flagg, who was coming off a 51-point game on Friday. Los Angeles took a 22-21 lead with 4:28 to go in the first quarter, but it then gave up a 12-2 run and found itself behind 41-30 at the end of the quarter.

It then surrendered the first 10 points of the second quarter, and it was forced to play catch-up the rest of the way. While the Lakers made it a two-possession game a few times in the second half and even came to within two points early in the third quarter, they were never able to fully hold Dallas back. Their defense was weak throughout the game, and it resulted in a 134-128 loss.

They actually outrebounded Dallas by 11, outscored Dallas in the paint by 12 and had nine more assists, but they allowed Dallas to shoot 43. 8% from 3-point range while going 8-of-27 from that distance themselves. The Lakers did a solid job of protecting the basketball by committing only 12 turnovers, but Dallas scored 21 points off those turnovers.

Flagg put up 45 points and made 15 of his 17 free throw attempts, and he was two rebounds and one assist away from a triple-double. The Lakers now have a 50-28 record and are tied in the standings with the Denver Nuggets. While they're still in third place in the Western Conference since they own the tiebreaker, their hold over that spot has loosened considerably.