Dallas ? Before the Dallas Mavericks held their last 11 opponents under 100 points, a team-record run that coincides with their NBA-best winning streak, they couldn’t stop Kobe Bryant.

Before Bryant scored 81 points against Toronto two weeks ago, he had been on pace to do that against Dallas. He had 62 through three quarters, outscoring the Mavericks on his own Dec. 20, then didn’t even play in the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ 22-point home victory.

“He probably could have had 80, or even more against us,” Dirk Nowitzki said Monday.

“The expression on his face, he was very excited. His teammates were excited. Phil (Jackson) was kind of laughing,” Jason Terry said. “It was depressing on our end.”

Dallas’ mood has greatly improved since then, but the Mavericks are about to find out how much better their defense really is. Next up are Bryant and the Lakers.

Tonight’s game is in Dallas, where Bryant, the NBA scoring leader at 35.7 per game, put up 43 in his other matchup against the Mavs this season.

“The times we’ve played them this year were games where I couldn’t afford to sit in the pocket and wait,” Bryant said. “I had to come out and be assertive right off the bat because we’d come off a couple of tough losses.”