The Golden State Warriors were dead in the water Friday night. Down by 25 to a Los Angeles Lakers team built around Luka Doncic, Golden State looked like a team headed for a quiet loss in a quiet October. Instead, Steph Curry decided the game wasn't over, and by the time the final buzzer sounded, the Warriors had completed a 112-95 win that will get replayed on highlight shows long after the box score is forgotten.
Curry finished with 31 points, but the raw total undersells the theater of it. The signature moment came late, when Curry put a crossover on Doncic that buckled his knees and left him grasping for balance as Curry calmly rose for the shot. It's the kind of sequence that turns a comeback into a story, the one still image a 25-point deficit gets remembered by.
That's the Curry trademark, by the way. Not just the shooting, the humiliation that comes attached to it. Defenders have been getting broken off by that same move for going on fifteen years now, and it never stops being funny to everyone except the man on the other end of it.
what happened in warriors-lakers
Comebacks of that size don't happen because one guy got hot in a vacuum. A 25-point deficit against a Doncic-led roster gets erased because the stops started coming too, because the Lakers' offense went cold at the exact moment Golden State's did not, and because a veteran group that has been through enough fourth quarters together to not blink when things look lost. That's a quality that shows up on tape more than it shows up in a box score, and it's the reason a Warriors group picked apart for its age all preseason just authored the best win of the young season for either team.
For the Lakers, it's an early gut check. Doncic is new to this roster and this city, and nights like this one, where a double-digit cushion turns into a double-digit deficit, are part of the price of figuring out a new group in real time. It happens. It's still going to sting watching the tape back.
what's next for golden state and the lakers
Neither team gets much time to sit with it. Golden State is back on the floor Sunday at home against the Los Angeles Clippers, a team that has been scuffling to open the year and will be looking to snap a losing skid of its own. That's a favorable follow-up spot for a Warriors group that just got a jolt of belief from the biggest win of its season so far.
The Lakers, meanwhile, host the Toronto Raptors that same Sunday, a club that just got a 41-point night out of Scottie Barnes and arrives with its own real momentum. There's no time to dwell on Friday's collapse, not with Barnes coming to town looking to put together a highlight reel of his own.
What I'm watching next: how the Lakers respond defensively in the fourth quarter against Toronto, because the version of this team that let a 25-point lead evaporate against Golden State can't afford a repeat performance against a Raptors team playing with this much confidence right now.
