They will return home with a 2-0 lead and the boost that outplaying the defending champions represents.

Uphill. It’s simple as that. It is the present that the defending champions Los Angeles Lakers are going through right now. Stunned twice at home this week by the Dallas Mavericks, the Lakers have fallen two games behind in a series that could mean the end of their two-year hegemony in the NBA.

Winning this Friday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas is a must for the defending champions, but in front they will have a team with its confidence at its peak after having won the first two games on the road.

In game one the Lakers blew a 16-point lead to end up losing 96-94, in a game where coach Phil Jackson felt that they "gave the game away." That speech could have make sense to a lot of fans about why game 1 was loss, but it isn’t good enough to buy as an excuse in game two, where they just managed to win one quarter and ended up losing by 12 points 93-81.

Explanations for this defeat can be found in the three point range, from where the Lakers didn’t have a bad night, they had an awful one. Just two out of their 20 3-pointers shots were good and their production really resented it. Nine out of those 20 attempts from the three point range came from the bench with 0% of effectiveness, percentage that was really close to the contribution of the bench in the game.

Only two of the Lakers substitutes reported points: Lamar Odom and Shannon Brown with six each: numbers so low that were paired by one single Mav: Juan Jose Barea with 12 points coming in from the bench. Dallas’ bench ended up outplaying the Lakers’ by 30-12.

Looking at the starters from both sides’ numbers it was the Lakers quintet that outplayed the Mavs 63-69, but they needed some rest and that was when the substitutes needed to step up for the team.

So with no assistance from the bench the game was basically over for the Lakers, because that was the place where they were supposed to find solution to their problems. Since they couldn’t find any their defeat was imminent.

Like it is usual in Los Angeles Kobe Bryant led the team with 23 points, followed by Andrew Bynum with 18. For Dallas, Dirk Nowitzki was the top scorer of the game with 24 points. Shawn Marion was their second best producer with 14 points.

Against the Lakers are not only the Mavericks, but history itself as only three NBA teams have recovered from a 2-0 disadvantage suffered at home during a seven-game playoff series. Under coach Jackson’s orders the Lakers had previously found themselves down 2-0 in a best of seven series in seven occasions, and felt eliminated in five of them.

This is just one more challenge that the Lakers will have to overcome if they really want to win their third championship in a row.