Perhaps suffering from overconfidence, Dallas dropped a 92-83 game to underdog LA Lakers. Dallas coach Bob battled unsuccessfully to get his players to take the game seriously, as they came in as heavy favorites. "What more can you do? We prepared as much for them as any other opponent, we made sure we came up with a custom game plan for them, but most of the players just expected LA Lakers to roll over dead."

LA Lakers coach Andreas Helmle, on the other hand, was thrilled to come away with the win. "I don't know what it was, but I could see from the start that they weren't executing as sharply as normal. I knew we couldn't beat them if they played well, but I felt they were leaving just enough of an opening for us to steal a win. That's exactly what happened, and by the time they finally started to wake up we were well in control."

LA Lakers was led by Bailey (26 points, 28 boards, 1 assists, a steal, 3 blocks), Carter (11 points, 10 boards, 1 assists, a block), Way (15 points, a steal, a block). Dallas was led by Garcia (33 points, 4 assists, 3 steals, a block), Clark (30 points, 4 blocks), Bernard (9 points, 16 boards, 4 assists).

LA Lakers broke their slump at 5 games, and jump to 3-12 and 2-4 at home. They stay at #5 in the Pacific and remain at #15 overall in the Western Conference. Dallas stand at 8-7 with this loss. They drop to #4 in the Southwest and move down to #8 overall in the Western Conference.

box score LA Lakers* roster Dallas roster