Warriors erase 23-point deficit to stun Doncic, Lakers in NBA Cup opener

The Golden State Warriors erased a 23-point first-quarter deficit to beat the Los Angeles Lakers 112-95 on Friday night at Chase Center, opening group play in the Emirates NBA Cup with one of the more lopsided reversals the league has seen in years. Golden State trailed by as many as 25 points in the first quarter before a second-quarter surge flipped the game, and the Warriors never trailed again after halftime.

Los Angeles led 38-15 after one quarter, with Luka Doncic scoring 21 of his game-high 37 points before the first break ended. The Warriors then closed the second quarter on a 16-2 run to tie the score at 53-53 by halftime, according to the box score published by Basketball-Reference, and outscored the Lakers 59-42 across the second half. Stephen Curry finished with 31 points on 11-of-23 shooting, including 8 of 14 from three-point range, to go with six assists. Doncic added seven rebounds and five assists to his 37 points but shot 12 of 27 from the field as the Lakers' offense stalled after the opening frame. Austin Reaves scored 21 points for Los Angeles but also committed eight turnovers. Brandin Podziemski added 21 points and six assists off Golden State's bench, while Walker Kessler had 10 points, 13 rebounds and five blocked shots in a losing effort for the Lakers. The announced crowd at Chase Center was 18,064.

A rare kind of comeback

The margin of the reversal was the headline. Golden State's own recap, published on the NBA's official site, noted that the Warriors became the first team since the introduction of the shot clock in the 1954-55 season to tie or take the lead at halftime after trailing by 23 or more points at the end of the first quarter. The Warriors committed 10 turnovers in the opening period alone, which the Lakers converted into 17 points, then gave the ball away only five more times the rest of the way. Golden State also won the bench-scoring battle by a lopsided 50-7, with Georges Niang, De'Anthony Melton, Brandon Williams and Charles Bassey combining for the bulk of that total off a Warriors roster missing three regular contributors.

That depth was notable given who Golden State was missing. The Warriors played the game without Jimmy Butler III (knee), Kristaps Porzingis (illness) and Moses Moody (knee), all listed out before tipoff. The Lakers, by contrast, were close to full strength; only Ziaire Williams (foot, day-to-day) and Adou Thiero (knee, out) appeared on the pregame injury report.

• Final score: Warriors 112, Lakers 95, at Chase Center in San Francisco
• Largest Lakers lead: 25 points in the first quarter; final margin: 17 points for Golden State
• Bench scoring: Warriors 50, Lakers 7
• Stephen Curry: 31 points, 8 three-pointers; Luka Doncic: 37 points, 21 in the first quarter alone

Standings and the bigger picture

The result pushed Golden State's record to 3-3, its third consecutive win after an 0-3 start to the season, though the Warriors remain 10th in the Western Conference under the team's own season tracker. The Lakers, who came in having won four of their first five games, dropped to 4-2 and fell to fifth in the West, according to the Lakers' official team page. Their only other loss this season came by seven points at Portland on Oct. 27, making Friday's 17-point defeat their worst margin of the young season. It also evened the season series between the two teams: the Lakers had beaten the Warriors 127-105 in both clubs' season opener on Oct. 21.

For Doncic, the night carried an individual footnote attached to a loss: it marked the 18th time in his career he has scored 20 or more points in a first quarter, and only the third time he has ended up on the losing side in those games, per the NBA's recap. None of that history changed the outcome. The Lakers were outscored by 42 points over the final three quarters after building their biggest lead of the night.

Kerr credits the reserves

Golden State head coach Steve Kerr did not dispute how poorly his team played to open the game, pointing instead to how the Warriors' reserves responded once the starters re-established their footing in the second quarter.

"We couldn't have played worse. They knew it. I didn't need to tell them. I thought our bench was really awesome tonight. This was about the bench — Georges and Melt, Brandon Williams, Charles Bassey. All of these guys came off the bench and gave us huge energy and helped get us back in the game," Kerr said, according to the NBA's recap of the win.

Curry, who hit a pair of highlight-reel shots directly over Doncic during the game, framed the turnaround in simpler terms afterward, saying the Warriors had talked at length about how they needed to respond after falling behind by 23 at the end of the first quarter. "To flip the score like we did at the half, in the second quarter, and to hold them under 95 after a 38-point first quarter is pretty impressive from everybody," Curry said.

What's next

Friday's result counts toward group-play standings in the Emirates NBA Cup, the league's in-season tournament, which runs through Nov. 27 before knockout rounds lead to a championship game on Dec. 11 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Cup games such as this one double as regular-season results, meaning the 112-95 final also moves directly into both teams' conference standings. Golden State and Los Angeles both return to the court on Sunday, Nov. 1 — the Warriors hosting the Los Angeles Clippers and the Lakers facing the Toronto Raptors — before Cup group play resumes later in November alongside the rest of the regular-season schedule. Both teams have additional group-play games remaining on the calendar before the league determines which clubs advance to the single-elimination knockout rounds in early December.