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NBA PLAYOFFS-WESTERN CONFERENCE SEMI-FINALS: GAME 2. LOS ANGELES LAKERS 81-93 DALLAS MAVERICKS

After the Mavericks drew second blood in Los Angeles the Lakers must go hard or go home for good in Dallas as the series moves to Texas. The Mavs have the Lakers by the fundamentals as they now lead 2 games to nothing following a 93-81 win. If the Lakers used their home-court advantage and tied the series up we'd be looking at different story but instead Dallas' double-zip lead have now given the Lakers serious concerns to add to the worries of their current problems. Now the Lakes need to address these problems. Sure Dallas have blown series leads like this before and L.A. have overcome similar deficits, (especially with teams like Dallas) but Game 3 is a completely different ballgame. Dirk Nowitzki scored 24 while Shawn Marion had 18, while Kobe had a Jordanesque 23 for the Lakers to go along with Ron Artest's one elbow and game suspension. "If you would have told me before that were going to win both games, that would have been hard to believe,'' Dirk told press postgame after he and his team dug deeper for victory and control to the tone of the series. Gasol's 13 points and 10 rebounds was good but his abilities to contain like-minded player Nowitzki suffered. Still the Lakers fans shouldn't have jeered him or his team. Right now if the Lake Show is going to go on everyone needs to be behind them. TIM DAVID HARVEY.