NBA Playoffs 2011: Can the Los Angeles Lakers Make History vs. Mavericks?

The Los Angeles Lakers are in a very precarious position against the Dallas Mavericks, sitting down in a 3-0 hole in the second round of the 2011 NBA Playoffs.

They are attempting to do something that no NBA team has ever done before, and that only four professional sports teams have ever done before, stave off elimination winning four straight games.

The odds are long, the outlook is bleak. Basically, it's not happening...right?

If ever there was a team built to come back from such a hole it is these Los Angeles Lakers. They are a team with great defense, an even better offense, plus a guy that has an argument for being included in the top ten players of all time.

There are a few things that are very important for the Lakers to do, however, in order for them to have any chance at even avoiding the sweep on Sunday.

Killer Kobe

Friday night against the Mavericks, the Lakers were up by eight points with nine minutes left in the game. Usually that is the point where Kobe Bryant will take the game and close it out.

He has been one of the best players in the past decade at killing any hope that the opposing team has at coming back.

However, Kobe scored only four points after that nine-minute mark, shooting two for six in the quarter.

In the three games combined, Kobe has just 15 points on 6-16 shooting and has gotten to the line only once.

If the Lakers are going to have any shot at beating the Mavs four times in a row, they are going to need Kobe Bryant to step up like he has been known to do in the fourth quarter.

Pau Gasol needs to step up

Pau Gasol has been something else in this series, and not in a good way.

Gasol is averaging 13 points and ten rebounds and less than a block in this series after a season in which he averaged 18 points 10 rebounds and a block and a half.

Worse yet, he has shot 5 for 10, 5 for 12 and 5 for 13 in the three games in this series, just 42 percent after shooting 52 percent in the regular season.

However, the worst part about Gasol in this series, and in the playoffs really, has been his defense, and more accurately his toughness.

I have always viewed Gasol as a soft player, but this season I have to give him credit for toughening up a bit and taking it to his opponent on a more regular basis. In this postseason, however, he has stepped away from it.

With Dirk Nowitzki playing out of his mind this series, Gasol has been unable to reign him in at all.

He has looked utterly lost at times chasing him from the low post to the three-point line and trying to throw a body on him at the free throw line when Dirk does his nearly unstoppable mid-range post-up one-footer fade-away. (That sentence just took the award for the most consecutive hyphenated words.

Gasol needs to play tougher on Dirk. If Nowitzki gets by him then so be it, but he needs to make Dirk work harder for his points.

Let Dirk have his shots

One of the things that I have been intrigued by in these playoffs is watching teams let their opponent's star player get their points while focusing on the other four guys on the floor.

The Lakers did it with Chris Paul, letting Derek Fisher or Steve Blake take him one-on-one, rarely double-teaming the guy. Paul got his points, but the Lakers were able to stop the other four players on the court enough to win the series in six games.

The starting lineup after Nowitzki includes DeShawn Stevenson (really Jason Terry), Shawn Marion, Jason Kidd and Tyson Chandler.

Andrew Bynum does fine with Chandler, Kobe can take either Stevenson or Terry, if he is the Ron Artest of late last year, Artest can take Shawn Marion and Derek Fisher still has the defense to keep Kidd relegated to the three-point line—something teams have done to him all year.

There is no reason a team should be equal or better in four of the five starting positions, but are unable to win one game out of four.

Los Angeles should leave Dirk on his own with Pau Gasol and focus on the four other match-ups, trying to get their advantage from any other spot possible.

The Lakers can make this comeback, the odds are long, but it's not impossible.