The Los Angeles Lakers hosted the Dallas Mavericks on the day before Thanksgiving in a very intriguing first matchup between the two teams. Dallas and Los Angeles always seem to play entertaining games against each other and that was the case in this game.
It looked like Dallas was going to run away with an easy win over the Lakers as the Mavericks were up 20 points heading into the fourth quarter. That is when LeBron James turned it up a notch and rallied the Lakers back into the game with a chance to win it.
It culminated with the Lakers getting a chance to win the game with the shot clock off, trailing by one. LeBron James attempted to lob a pass to Anthony Davis in the paint, where it was tipped by Richaun Holmes and eventually stolen by Luka Doncic. This turnover would ice the game.
While it was a rare bad pass by LeBron, it should have never happened. Friday's L2M report said that Holmes should have been called for a defensive three seconds on the very play where he came up with the tipped pass.
NBA L2M report says Richaun Holmes should have been called for defensive 3 seconds when he came up with the big steal on LeBron’s lob to AD when the Lakers were down one in the final seconds. https://t.co/xmGrVLKe3F pic.twitter.com/NMyw855oks
— Daniel Starkand (@DStarkand) November 24, 2023
NBA admits Lakers were robbed of a win vs Mavericks
Non-Lakers fans love to point out that the purple and gold get the advantage of the ref's whistle but that never actually seems to be the case. Time and time again the Lakers seem to be on the losing end of bad calls like this, especially at the end of the game.
Another painful example that instantly comes to mind is the team's loss against the Boston Celtics in the regular season last year. LeBron was very obviously fouled at the end of the game and nothing was called. The Lakers lost.
It might not seem like a big deal that the Lakers were robbed of a win in November when there are so many more games left to play. But with how talented and closely contested the Western Conference is, mistakes like this absolutely can make a big difference.
Los Angeles finished as the seventh seed in the Western Conference last season. If the team had won against the Celtics it would have finished with the same record as the Warriors. The Lakers had the tiebreaker advantage over the Warriors last year. Thus, the no-call against the Celtics forced the Lakers to have to go through the Play-In Tournament before getting to the playoffs.
Obviously, it ended up working out for the Lake Show but there is a big difference between getting a guaranteed playoff spot and having to go through the play-in. If the purple and gold end up one game behind a favorable spot in the standings yet again we will know which game to go back and circle as the reason why.
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