What we've been hearing for the past two weeks is "the Lakers are reverting to last season's style of play." ...Well, after watching tonight's game, the sentiment has changed to "the Lakers are reverting to last game's style of play."

Yet another post-Shaq era famous third quarter collapse claimed yet another Lakers win tonight, as they fell to the Mavericks 112-105. In an all too similar fashion to Wednesday's third quarter where six and a half minutes passed before the Lakers managed to score a point, some four minutes passed under the same circumstances tonight.

The Lakers overcame a 17 point deficit to bring the game within five points, but it wasn't enough to get over the hump... obviously.

Kobe scored 40 points on 11-19 from the field, and arguably played one his most athletic games of the year, pulling down 10 rebounds and scaring fans a couple times with some near-injuries.

Lamar and Luke, though getting into some foul trouble made a miniscule impact tonight. Luke only took ONE shot en route to scoring four, and Lamar took nine, scoring four.

Jordan Farmar finished close to his career high, with 18, D-Fish scored 11 with foul trouble, and Kwame finished with 10 and 3.

DJ Mbenga doubled his Lakers playing time tonight, with five points, four rebounds, and a decent defensive presence in 15:53 on the floor. This makes me put the "scenario" hat on. After Lamar's horrific performance tonight, how does starting Ronny at the four, and letting Odom come off the bench sound? I'm not saying that this will happen. I'm not even saying this necessarily should happen, BUT, what are the Lakers fans thinking? Personally, I cringe every time Lamar takes a three, and after yelling at Phil tonight, something might happen with his role on the team... but I doubt it.

The Mavs posted some huge numbers, with Josh Howard and Dirk BOTH finishing with 26 and 10. Devin Harris scored 18, Jason Terry posted 15, and Brandon Bass scored 10.

The Lakers are now 2-3 in the post-subluxation era, and go on to play the Cavs, Sunday at 12:30 pm. This weekend marks the beginning of ABC's Sunday basketball. Woo!

Box Score [Fox Sports]