Podcast: Why these Lakers and Mavericks games could be really meaningful

Anthony Davis returned (at least for the first half) as the Lakers lost to the Dallas Mavericks, 115-110 on Thursday night, giving the first of the team’s two games in a row against each other plenty of notable topics to discuss. And Silver Screen and Roll podcast host Harrison Faigen could think of no one better to talk it all over with than Kirk Henderson of our sister site, Mavs Moneyball.

To kick things off, Harrison and Kirk discussed their takeaways from this almost shockingly competitive game — from who they thought were the keys to keeping it surprisingly competitive, to who came up a bit short — and then broke down what they expect from the next game on Saturday as this baseball-style series continues over the weekend.

Then, after they finished chatting about Thursday night’s game, Harrison and Kirk shifted gears to the Western Conference playoff race, and the status of both of these teams. Does Kirk think there is any chance the Mavericks (currently in seventh place) can catch the Lakers down the stretch? Is Harrison worried at all about the Lakers slipping, or does he think they can make up ground and maybe rise higher up the standings? They both gave their takes.

Finally, the two of them wrapped up by discussing why they think the play-in game concept is so compelling for those of us on the outside, and how it has made the NBA season better (even if both the Mavericks’ and Lakers are clearly not fans of the idea).

You can listen to all that and more in our latest episode in the player embedded below, and to make sure you don’t miss a single one moving forward, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.

You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen, and Kirk at @KirkSeriousFace.