Sizing up the Mavericks' 9:30 p.m. visit to the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night, which opens a crazy, coast-to-coast four-game road trip:
Doing it with mirrors?
The Lakers were predicted to be one of the two worst teams in the Western Conference (along with Phoenix), but so far are 4-3 after beating the Suns on Sunday night. How are they doing it? Part of it is the element of surprise. The Lakers are better than people expected, but they also have caught a couple teams (Houston, Golden State) when they weren't exactly hitting on all cylinders.