said. “And then, obviously, they watched to see how we play. They put us in a lot of pick-and-rolls. If they broke us down, it was either get to the rim or spray out. Then they played drive-and-kick game and hit a lot of 3s.”

James added: “I felt like they just put people in pick-and-roll who they wanted in pick-and-roll and they tried to exploit matchups. And when we got into rotations, we didn’t make enough second efforts.”

Reaves was one of the players the Mavericks targeted.

“Just play better defense,” Reaves said when asked what he could do in those situations. “The first half was awful. The second half, I thought was better. But I can’t allow that. I was just really, really bad on both sides of the ball.”

Redick was critical of the team’s rotations after the Mavericks broke down their defense.

“I’m not sure what our rotations were,” he said. “I’d never seen us try to execute what we were doing. I haven’t watched the film yet. Just watching it live and talking to the assistants who did watch it on film, we’re not sure what was going on with the shift positioning and the rotations. ... Never seen it before.”

Quentin Grimes was one of the players who stepped up for Dallas, scoring a game-high 23 points (six 3-pointers) to go with nine rebounds and six assists.

Dallas shot 47.4% (18 for 38) from 3-point range, with many of them coming at opportune times and many of them wide-open looks.

“We needed to be in our shifts and in our gaps,” Christie said. “And they did a good job of moving guys around, kind of moving our shifts out of the way and there was some miscommunication on our part to let up a 3 or two. Once they saw the first one or two go in, then they’re feeling really good and they’re going to shoot the next two or three contested ones.”

P.J. Washington added 22 points (shooting 9 for 14 and making all three of his 3-point attempts) and eight rebounds. Former Laker Spencer Dinwiddie finished with 19 points, eight assists and six rebounds while Jaden Hardy scored 15 points and made a trio of 3-pointers.

The Mavericks closed the first half on an 11-0 run, including a trio of 3-pointers from Klay Thompson (13 points), for a five-point lead then outscored the Lakers 63-47 after halftime.

Dallas, which snapped a five-game losing streak, outrebounded the Lakers 44-33 and outscored them 52-40 in the paint.