Lakers lose three in a row and Warriors also lose to the Timberwolves

(Basketball news) The Lakers suffered their third straight loss after the all star break as they lost to the Dallas Mavericks 109-104. For the Mavs, Luka Doncic scored seven of his 25 points in the fourth quarter, Jalen Brunson added 22 points as Dorian Finney-Smith had 16 points and nine rebounds for the Mavericks, who hung on for their eighth win in 10 games. For the Lakers, LeBron James scored 26 points and Carmelo Anthony had 20 for the Lakers, who took their sixth loss in seven games despite erasing a 21-point deficit in just over 12 minutes. With this result the Mavs improved their record 37-25 and sit just a win behind the Utah Jazz in 5th in the Western Conference standings.

''At halftime we told them, `They're coming. LeBron is coming,'' Dallas coach Jason Kidd said. ''In the third quarter, LeBron put on a show, but we didn't lose our composure. That's one of the things we've gotten better at, and in the fourth quarter we got back to what we've done at Golden State. We held them to 17 points, and that's pretty good.''

''We stayed together and just executed the game plan, played the game,'' Doncic said. ''My mentality is to close the game with the best shot possible. We executed down the stretch.''

''I don't know if you can do a better job on Luka than we did tonight,'' Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. ''Our guys really competed. Our helpers really competed, but he had that stretch in crunch time where he scored a few buckets in a row. Not good enough. … It hurts. All these guys are hurting there. We're putting in the work.''

“We still have games to play,'' James said. ''Until you stomp me out, cut my head off, bury me 12 feet under, I've got a chance. So that's my confidence. We've got to come here and win ball games and play better, but as long as we've got ball games to play, we've got a chance.''

''I hit my head (on the rim),'' Doncic said with a laugh. ''We're not going to talk about that. Let me enjoy the moment.''

The Golden State Warriors lost to the Timberwolves 129-114. For the Timberwolves Karl Anthony Towns had 39 points and nine rebounds he went 14 for 22 from the floor and D'Angelo Russell pitched in 22 points, and Malik Beasley added 20 points on 6-for-9 shooting from 3-point range for Minnesota. For the Warriors, Stephen Curry led them with 34 points and Gary Payton II added 14 points. With this result the Timberwolves improved their record to 34-29 and sit comfortably in 7th place in the Western Conference table.

''Nights like tonight where you just don't play a good brand of basketball defensively to give yourself a chance to win on the road against a team that you allow to have life all night, you're not going to win a lot of games that way,'' Curry said.

''We're going to be fine long-term. I'm excited about our team and excited about where we can go, but we've just got to weather this storm,'' coach Steve Kerr said.

''He played hard, played to exhaustion,'' coach Chris Finch said. ''At one point he had to ask to come out. Super inspirational for his guys tonight.''

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The other results were: