DALLAS – The Los Angeles Lakers’ growing momentum came to a screeching halt on Tuesday with a 118-97 loss to an undermanned Dallas Mavericks team, leaving L.A. 0-0 on its two-stage road trip to Texas that began with a loss in Houston. 2 back.

“I mean, obviously it sucks, especially knowing where we were and how well we played,” LeBron James said after the Lakers fell to No. 6 in the Western Conference standings.

They began the trip as the No. 4 seed in the West after winning eight of 11 games while also upgrading the roster by acquiring Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton for D’Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis and three second-round picks.

But things got even worse on the trip. Los Angeles trailed by as many as 22 points in the first half before losing 119-115 to the Houston Rockets – a team that had lost three of four games and was without Jabari Smith Jr. (broken left hand).

The Lakers’ stumble continued in Dallas against a Mavericks team that had lost six of seven games entering the evening. Although the Mavs played without Luka Doncic (strained left calf), Kyrie Irving (bulging disc in his back) and Daniel Gafford (left ankle injury), Dallas outscored LA 63-47 in the second half to secure the win thus victory.

“Obviously they killed us with all the iso stuff,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said after his team allowed the Mavs to shoot 52.3% from the field and almost as well from three, for a score of 18 to 38 (47.4%).

James (18 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists) praised Mavs coach Jason Kidd – a former Lakers assistant coach – for his “great game plan” against the Lakers’ defense.

Specifically, Kidd instructed his players to target Austin Reaves in isolation situations.

“I felt like they were just putting the guys they wanted in the pick-and-roll and they were trying to take advantage of matchups,” James said. “And when we got into the rotation, we didn’t make enough second attempts.”

Reaves took responsibility for his performance.

“The first half was terrible,” said Reaves, who finished with a plus-minus of -25 in 32 minutes. “I thought the second half was better. But I can’t allow that. I was really, really bad on both sides of the ball tonight.”

Reaves scored 15 points and shot 5 of 14 from the field (4 of 11 from 3).

The Lakers’ most consistent player this season, Anthony Davis, didn’t fare much better. He scored 21 points on 7-for-18 shooting with 12 rebounds and 2 blocks, but was partly responsible for Dallas scoring 52-40.

Redick pointed out the bevy of bunnies the Lakers missed at the rim – including Davis – who sapped their energy on defense.

Davis declined to speak to reporters after the game.

Finney-Smith said Los Angeles could have used Davis and the rest of the team to be more vocal on defense to help players like Reaves when they were targeted in pick-and-rolls.

“We need to do a better job of talking behind the guys and giving them confidence so the ball-handling defenders can crawl up and force them to the rim,” Finney-Smith said. “And we have AD down there, so we have to use it.”

The Lakers return to Los Angeles for their next eight games – seven at Crypto.com Arena and also their debut at the Intuit Dome to play the LA Clippers – starting with the Charlotte Hornets.

“We played another game in less than 48 hours,” James said. “So we can’t dwell on this for too long. That’s the name of the game in the NBA. You see what you could have done better, but you have to prepare for the next opponent and we have another game coming up on Thursday at our apartment building.”