Lakers are at least showing some effort this half
If they come back and win this game, you're going to have to take the blame. 
I can do that. The talent levels on these teams are pretty even. I don’t think brunson, dinwiddie powell and finney smith should be dominating the lakers In LA if LA makes an effort. Lebron hit three threes in the third curious what he will have here in the 4th.
Putting aside Lebron and Doncic, the Mavs have much better players than the Lakers.
This is really the bottom line. Last night, the Lakers were +7 in Lebron's 38 minutes and -12 in the 10 minutes he was on the bench. Conversely, in Luka's 38 minutes the Mavs were -4 and they were +9 in the 10 minutes he sat on the bench. The Lakers have 3 players that aren't minimum players, Lebron, Westbrook, and THT. Everyone else on their team that is available is on a minimum contract, and rightfully so (Carmelo is probably the only guy whose value is above a minimum contract that is on one). They just don't have a very good team. They need Davis to look like a top 5 guy and Westbrook to not be awful for them to play well and neither of those things has happened this year.
No, the bottom line is this completely checked out version of LeBron last night.
https://twitter.com/WorldWideWob/status/1498871539952799744
How is Lebron fighting for position in the post and getting open completely checked out? I agree after his teammates missed him in the post that he gave no effort to rebound the ball and jogged back on defense. But if he was completely checked out he'd be standing at the 3pt line not fighting for position in the post.
He was completely checked out the moment that shot went up. If any member of the Celtics just ignored two rebound attempts like that and proceeded to dog it back on defense there'd instantly be a thread demanding he be traded and/or Udoka fired for not benching him. He quit in the middle of a possession.
He fought positioning again after the first offensive rebound though and the 2nd rebound attempt went no where near him.
Moranis, tazz, what are you watching?
Lebron fought for low post position to receive the ball to score. His only interest was to get the ball and shoot. Once the shot went up his positioning fight stopped and he just stood there doing nothing. For literally seconds.
Then once he teammate stole the ball he once again tried to seal down low for the expressed purpose of getting the ball to shoot and score. And again, once the ball was shot and not fed to him, he gave up and then dogged it up the court on defense to see the Mavs score easily because they had numbers because Lebron jogged up the floor.
This video is proof, Lebron only tries hard when he has the ball on offense or desperately wants the ball on offense and otherwise gives little to no effort.
And clay is right, he's been doing this most of the year. He is searching out points to get Kareem's record much like Rondo searched out assists. It's terrible.