When the first quarter of last night’s barnburner ended between the Los Angeles Lakers and your Golden State Warriors, I had already resigned myself to the mediocre type of season this was going to be until this team gets healthy. The Lakers were up 38-15, with their volume turned all the way up on Dub Nation in Chase Center.
I saw Luka Doncic running up the numbers in that first frame, rampaging against the Warriors for daring to besmirch him with their rookie Yaxel Lendeborg’s comments about not respecting him.
Luka’s absolutely one of those superstars who gets activated on any perceived slight, real or imaginary. Young Yax’s comments were absolutely incendiary, a first year player daring to give his honest feedback about one of the faces of the league foul baiting.
I saw Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler just hitting the Warriors with smart, aggressive play on both ends of the court that made it feel like Golden State was genuinely being out classed by superior hoopers.
The rationalizer in me suddenly took the narrative pen in my brain. I began to shrug my shoulders and lean into the idea that until reinforcements arrived in the form of Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody finishing knee rehabs, and Kristaps Porzingis drinking the blood of a unicorn to regain his strength, this team was just not going to be competitive against the star powered teams in the NBA.
And that makes sense, right? There’s a reason Butler gets paid $50 million a year; he’s a game wrecker who absolutely demoralizes other teams with his unbreakable will and gritty skill. There’s a reason the Warriors drafted Moody in the lottery and spent years developing him while other young players evaporated into the sands of time. Porzingis, when not stricken with mystery illness, has been an anchor in the middle for championship level teams. There’s not a ton of 7-foot-3 snipers with post moves and can protect the rim. No wonder the Warriors are getting outclassed without those guys; my rational self-talk already building a dam to keep the disappointment from swallowing me.
I wondered at how wise it was for Yaxel to openly taunt a superstar player like Luka like that, even though I loved the fervor (and agreed with the point).
I immediately thought about why it’s so important for a team as thin on the depth chart as the Warriors to not make extra enemies out of teams who may take the Dubs lightly and sleepwalk into a trap game. When you wake up those quality teams, they could absolutely lock into monster mash mode and beat these fragile Dubs up, as the Lakers did opening night when Yaxel first engaged in trash talk with Luka. When the ticker read “Lakers 38, Warriors 15” at the merciful end of the first quarter, I was already ready to write DNHQ the “Why rookies must learn to rein in their boisterous spirits to keep their team from getting lit on fire” piece.
And that’s when Steph Curry activated a higher principle. The “do not mess with Steph Curry’s teammates ever in your life” protocol that has literally put opponents into nightmare scenarios where Curry’s deepest most vile basketball imaginations can finally be unleashed in real time.
Golden State hung the exact same 38-15 margin they suffered after the first period right back on them in the second quarter and by halftime it was tied, making the Warriors the first team in the shot-clock era to erase a 23-plus point hole before the break.
The second half was a manhunt, plain and simple, with the Warriors running screen after screen to drag Luka onto Steph and check Luka’s temperature. And lateral movement lmao.
Down 69-60 midway through the third, Niang set the screen that flipped Thybulle off and Luka on, and Steph went to work on the left wing with a dribble combination that sent Luka stumbling to the hardwood.
Steph paused, quietly eyed the rim as the crowd leapt to their feet, splashed the three, and grabbed his own face like he couldn’t believe what he’d just done to a grown man in public. Yaxel said guys on the bench were calling him a “sicko,” and I can dig it.
To Luka’s credit, he scored immediately on the next possession, but by then he’d lost control of the night’s narrative. Afterward Steph laid out the plan in one sentence: keep making Luka’s life “as hard as possible.”
When Curry starts making customized celebrations to intentionally target an opponent’s aura, that’s when you know he’s in a hyper present space where now he is going to write your destiny on you in real time. Whatever idea you had about yourself as a player, the thing you want people to believe about you, is about to be dismantled. Whether you rebuild yourself after that is what differentiates a lesson from a loss. Except on the scoreboard, where it’s most assuredly a loss lol.
Curry stole the show with 31 points, 6 assists, and 4 rebounds. He shot 11-of-23 from the field, 8-of-14 from beyond the arc.
From here, I present to you the highlights.
Amazing. Steph, you did it again. Warriors 112, Lakers 95. Steph > Luka.
I liked the part where they shut down Luka. Winning was nice too! 😉
LFG Valks! (Is this the right thread?)