There were others helping Kobe in his quest.  Luke Walton fouled out, but racked his third consecutive solid game (11/6, with a pair of steals and some active D), slowly providing Laker fans with some hope that his season-long cobwebs might be fading.  Lamar Odom and Sasha Vujacic both struggled with their shots, but provided solid D on (respectively) Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd for long stretches.  LO was also good for ten boards.  And while Pau Gasol's lockdown deficiencies were exposed on several occasions during the contest, his 17/14/5/3 steal/2 blocks hardly brought nothing to the table).

Similar to how Tuesday's win against Portland struck me as beneficial and revealing of this team's makeup (the first in eons where these Lakers needed to come back from far down), this afternoon was also pretty key.  Big game.  Legit team.  National TV.  OT.  Lot of breakdowns and gaffes that could have left a team too deflated to continue battling.  Not the case with these Lakers.  Not that I expected oodles of quit on the hardwood, since this team's been pretty consistent when it comes to keeping their heads up and blood icy.  But it never hurts to see one more reminder, especially against a team they could find themselves doing battle with sometime in April or May. 

The breakdown is below, courtesy of BK.

AK   

The Good:

• Kobe Bryant: 52 points, 11 rebounds (including some massive, massive grabs on both ends down the stretch), four dimes, two blocks.  He scored 38 of LA's 58 second half points, including 22 of 28 in the fourth, and eight of 15 in OT.  After missing seven free throws early, Kobe was lights out down the stretch, hitting all 15 he took in the fourth quarter and extra period.  As we've written a lot on this site, Kobe has, going back to last season, altered his game, and I think has allowed it to mature, exerting his influence on games more profoundly in ways that don't involve shooting and scoring.  Today, he had one of those signature Kobe Bryant games, where down the stretch he simply refused to let his team end up on the wrong end of the final score.
   
• Lakers D: There were some holes- the Dirk Nowitzki shot to put the game into OT for example, and the Pau Gasol foul, perhaps one of the ten worst fouls in the history of the game, that gave the Mavs a shot to send it to a second extra frame- but overall the Lakers played some pretty good defense against a very solid team.  Dallas came into the game averaging 99 points a night, and scored 93 in regulation.  As a team, they shoot over 46% from the floor.  Today, Dallas was stuck at 37%.  Among those who were particularly good: 

Sasha Vujacic, who couldn't shoot to save his life (more on that in a sec), but made Jason Kidd work hard down the stretch to get some space.  Nobody shuts Kidd down completely and there were times Kidd got the best of him, but at the every least, Sasha worked his ass off to make Kidd's life as tough as possible.  He was as effective on him as anyone Phil Jackson put on the future HOFer all night. 

Lamar Odom.  Yes, Dirk hit the three to send the game into OT, a play in which a) Odom didn't stick closely enough to Nowitzki off the inbound (as many bloggers pointed out), then got lost in a double screen while b) Gasol was craptastic in his effort to close as the help defender.  But overall, Odom made Dirk work offensively.  He'd finish 10-26, which is a lot of shots to end up with 30 points, and at one point was 7-21 (with a couple makes coming against Gasol).  Most of the shots Dirk made were basically unguardable.  Remember, the dude has won some MVPs, so there's not a defender on the planet who can shut him down totally.  Overall, LO did about as good a job throughout the game as anyone could expect.

• Turnovers.  The lack thereof, specifically.  Eleven all night (including five from Kobe, about the only possible blemish in what was a stellar game), which is solid for a game that extends into OT.  The Lakers seem to be over their butterfingery ways of the early season, which helps explain why they've been so successful of late.  Hold onto the ball, and you minimize easy points for the opposition. 

The Bad:

• Offensive flow.  Early in the game, the Lakers aggressively cut and were very effective without the ball.  As the game went on, that went away, which helps explain why the Lakers scored 36 points in the second and third quarters combined.   Players spent too much time standing around.  Part of the trouble was...
• Outside shooting.  5-23 from downtown, including a wretched 1-10 for Sasha, who was a little trigger happy today.  I love that he has confidence in his shot these days- he's certainly earned it- but Sunday he was a little bit of a black hole.  The ball came in, and very rarely went back out.  He wasn't the only culprit.  Fish was 1-4, and continues to struggle from the floor (3-11 overall).  Jordan Farmar was 1-6 from the field, 1-3 from three.  Anyone who reads this site regularly knows I'm a big advocate of inside-out play, but it becomes difficult to keep teams honest and open lanes for penetration and cuts when nothing falls from the outside.  Open jumpers need to go down with more frequency than they did today, or Friday night in Portland.
• Decision making.  There were multiple breakdowns late.  Beyond the aforementioned defensive breakdowns on the Dirk three at the end of the fourth, Phil Jackson's decision not to foul and send Dallas to the line isn't one I agree with.  He was asked about it after the game (the audio is below), and said "In a situation like that, with all three point shooters (on the floor), you risk a chance of a four point play, or three free throws.  I did tell Lamar that if Nowitzki put the floor to foul him, but the rest of the team I didn't tell them."  Coaches seem divided on this point, whether to foul with a team needing a three with little time on the clock.  Especially with that little time remaining- 6.1 ticks when Dallas inbounded the ball- I'm a believer in the foul.  Overall, I thought the Lakers played a pretty smart game, and it's not fair to throw the entire thing away on a couple plays, but in this case, I think Phil chose wrong.   

UPDATE: I spoke to Mitch about the play after the game, and he said the mistake Odom made, as some of you wrote in the game thread, was dropping off Nowitzki after the inbound, following the natural instinct for a defender to "drop to the level of the ball."  Mitch then said he quickly realized the mistake, but by then it was too late because he'd been hung up in the pick.  And, as we talked about in the game thread as well, Gasol didn't do well in an effort to rotate up to contest the shot.  The collective wisdom of the blog, confirmed!

It's worth noting, though, that Gasol made up for it in the OT, when he did a great job of fighting through a Terry screen to force Dirk into a tough three attempt, fading away from the basket.  Interesting/effective adjustment, too, from PJ to put Gasol on Nowitzki for that play, and switch Odom to Howard.

Overall, though, this was a very good win against a very good team.  I love how the Mavs looked with Kidd on the floor.  Clearly they're not a pushover.  Would it have been nice to win running away?  Sure.  But the W is the important thing, and they got it.  It's nice, too, to see them pushed and respond when heading into OT the Lakers could have lost their composure.  Obviously, Kobe helps there. 

AUDIO:  Technical difficulties today, so all we have is PJ.

• Download phil_jackson_3.2 postDAL.mp3

BK

Mavs G Jason Terry

On the game itself
"It was amazing, man.  That's what playoff basketball is all about.  That's the intensity level that was in the building.  It's nip and tuck, all up and down the standings.  Each game is critical.  You lose one or two, you could be in 8th place.  There's lots of basketball left and it's going to be tough all the way through."

On it already feeling like the playoffs for about ten teams in the west
"That's the type of intensity it's been for us, probably for the last week and a half.  I can only imagine it's going to keep turning up as we get closer and closer."

Mavs Coach Avery Johnson
On trying to stop Kobe
"The funny thing is we gave him a single look, then we double teamed him, then we triple teamed him and he split the triple team and scored.  Obviously, he milked the free throw line on us and he just had it all going.  We tried to zone him.  We tried to funnel him in the trap for a zone and he went the other way.  He didn't cooperate on any of our defenses.  He's a great player.  You can't anything away from him.  He has these nights.  Lots of those."

On the game itself
"These games are a game of waves and when you have two really good teams out there playing, it's a game of inches."

Maybe it's just me, but I think that's a great line.

AK