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DALLAS — I have lamented the various ills of the N.B.A.’s opening month plenty. It is time to give thanks for what happened on the first day of November: My press row seat at American Airlines Center made it feel as though I could reach out and touch the best game of the season so far.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ overtime victory last Friday night in Dallas was one of those instant classics. You had the Mavericks’ young-star tandem of Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis jousting with what is looking more and more like the most formidable duo in a league full of them: LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

The reality is that a showdown of this magnitude, served up to a national ESPN audience, came too soon for Porzingis, the former Knick. He had played just six regular-season games after a 20-month absence. It’s way too soon to judge him; give Porzingis more time to regain the requisite confidence and zip in his legs to fly around the floor the way James, Davis and Doncic were.

Those three, by contrast, are ripe for judging, grading and outright fawning over.

Doncic looks like the most cocksure 20-year-old European import this league has seen. On the other side, James and Davis are meshing fantastically, even though almost everyone you speak to in Lakers circles is convinced that the offense is woefully behind where it will ultimately land because the team lost considerable practice time during its chaotic trip to China last month.