LOS ANGELES — Phil Jackson walked into his pregame news conference and conceded that he was concerned. The Lakers cannot stumble every series and expect to crawl out clean as a champion. The Dallas Mavericks, their second-round opponent, are deep, talented and star powered.
“We’re worried now,” he said. “This is a good team. We know that they have the same record we have. They have a lot of options in scoring, and we’ve got to play a lot better to overcome this team in the course of the series. Our strength is we’ve always become better and better against teams in series. We hope to do that.”
The opening-series loss rattled the Lakers. Wednesday’s 93-81 followup defeat to Dallas triggered the panic meter to full tilt. With balanced scoring, a choking defense and a steady diet of Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavericks came here and seized a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series that now transfers to Dallas.
The two-time defending champion Lakers are two losses away from an early playoff exit and sending Jackson, who is intent on retiring after the season, to an early retirement.
The Mavericks can advance to the Western Conference finals without ever descending back in Los Angeles. The last time the Lakers trailed by 2-0 in a series was in the 2008 finals when they lost to the Boston Celtics.
Nowitzki scored 24 points and grabbed 7 rebounds after he torched the Lakers for 28 and 14 in the series opener. The Lakers even tried Ron Artest, who is smaller, but stronger on Nowitzki. Nowitzki simply rose and shot over him.
The Mavericks were also pushed by the backup point guard Jose Barea. Barea is generously listed at 6 feet, but he consistently cut through the Lakers’ interior of Pau Gasol,Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum and finished with 12 points and 4 assists.
Barea’s layup early in the fourth quarter stretched Dallas’s lead to 75-65. The lead ballooned to 15 points before Kobe Bryant hit a 3-pointer. Bryant scored 14 of his 23 points in the first half, when the Lakers stayed in the game.
But the Lakers shot only 41 percent and missed 18 of their 20 3-pointers.
The Lakers normally excel as playoff series evolve. They lost the first-round series opener to the Chris Paul-fueledNew Orleans Hornets. But Gasol and Bynum are playing unevenly, their bench is providing little and Artest was ejected from the closing moments of Game 2 for his second technical foul.
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