Lakers Need To Step Up To Even The Score With Unpredictable Mavericks

The Los Angeles Lakers will be out for revenge when they face the surging Dallas Mavericks on Thursday, January 12 at the Crypto.com Arena.

The Lakers and Mavericks are coming off losses, and both teams are expected to try and get back on the winning track.

Dallas is expected to play with more urgency considering they have dropped back-to-back games.

Before their loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, the Mavs also dropped a 109-120 decision to the Oklahoma City Thunder last Sunday, January 8.

In that loss to the Clippers, Dallas bowed to the Kawhi Leonard-led squad despite the 43-point effort of Luka Doncic.

The Slovenian guard, who did not play against the Thunder in their previous assignment, missed four of his first five shots and had 12 points on 3-of-9 shooting in the first half before getting hot.

The Mavericks are averaging 110.5 points per game on 46.9% shooting from the field and 35.7% from the three-point region.

On the defensive side of things, they are limiting opponents to only 111 points on 47.9% field goal shooting.

They are also giving up 44 rebounds per game and hold a defensive rating of 113.9, which is 23rd in the league.

Listed as out for the game are Dorian Finney-Smith and Josh Green. Dwight Powell has likewise been listed as questionable.

Meanwhile, the Lakers are hoping to bounce back after getting foiled by the Denver Nuggets.

Los Angeles was unable to check Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in that game.

It also did not help that LeBron James sat out in that matchup with a sore left ankle.

"Kudos to our guys—they kept fighting and just had a couple of bad turnovers, couple balls that didn't go our way, couple shots didn't go down," Lakers coach Darvin Ham said after the game.

With James and Anthony Davis still out due to an injury, Los Angeles was led by Russell Westbrook off the bench with 25 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists.

Thomas Bryant added 17 points and 10 rebounds as well.

The Lakers are averaging 116.7 points per match on 48.6% field goal shooting and 34.1% from beyond the arc.

They are allowing the opposition 117.8 points per game on 47.2% field goal shooting, numbers they cannot afford against an explosive team like the Mavs.

They are also giving up 45.2 rebounds per outing and have a defensive rating of 113.5, which is 22nd in the league.

The Mavericks are the odds-on-favorite to prevail with a -3 spread over the Lakers, who are at +3.

Meanwhile, the moneyline for this matchup is -167 for Dallas and +120 for Los Angeles.

The Lakers brace for a Mavericks team looking to stop their losing spell on Thursday at the Crypto.com Arena with the tip-off set for 10:00 PM ET.

The game will be telecast over TNT with live streaming available via fuboTV.