The Lakers are staggering to improbable defeat

Admit it. When the Lakers took an eight-point lead with 9:29 left in the fourth quarter, you thought it was over. No, not just the game. The series. You thought it was inevitable that the Lakers would not only win the game, but then proceed to steamroll the Mavericks in Games 4, 5 and 6 and possibly 7. The Lakers were the two-time defending champs, going against a team with a significant drop-off in talent level, especially with their second-leading scorer (Caron Butler) out for the series.

But that’s not what happened. Peja Stojakovic, who was unable to beat the Lakers as a member of the Kings 10 years ago, magically found new life, outscored Kobe Bryant -- the best finisher, supposedly, in basketball -- 11 to 4 in the period, and the Lakers squandered their fourth quarter lead and are now down 3-0.

It was an outcome no one could have possibly predicted, but it makes perfect sense in what might go down as the postseason that broke all the rules. Everything we thought we knew about the NBA is being rewritten before our very eyes. The Dallas Mavericks were supposed to be weak and feeble-minded, chronicle playoff chokers who honestly should have gone out to the Portland Trail Blazers. Zach Randolph was supposed to be the biggest statistical fraud in basketball, a player only capable of putting up regular season stats and who could never be the best player on a winning team. The San Antonio Spurs were supposed to never lose in the first round of the playoffs when their big three was healthy and when their opponent was without their best player. And the Miami Heat weren’t supposed to get anywhere with three superstars and a paltry supporting cast that’s utterly interchangeable.

But all that pales in comparison to the decline of the Lakers, who we’ve seen crumble from a dynastic juggernaut to a team in disarray in a matter of weeks. When they lost Game 1 at the buzzer, it was an eyebrow raiser insofar that great teams of that caliber never blow 16-point second half leads, which L.A. did. And in the second game, when you’d expect the Lakers to come out like the Celtics did in Game 3 against Miami, the Lakers were demolished and trailed Dallas 84-69 with about 3 minutes to go. If there’s one constant from prohitive championship teams, it’s that they always seem to pull off wins whenever they need them, and through the first three games of this series, the Lakers have failed to do that on any level.

With all that in mind, it’s hard to see anything but a Mavericks victory in Game 4. Conventional wisdom would have the Lakers at least winning a game, and maybe winning Game 5 as well to make it a series again. But that’s assuming that these really are the Lakers of old. Through three games, there’s nothing to show that they are.