{"id":323402,"date":"2025-10-22T08:50:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T08:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/323402\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T08:50:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T08:50:18","slug":"luka-doncic-scores-43-but-lakers-fall-to-warriors-in-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/323402\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic scores 43 but Lakers fall to Warriors in season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lakers<\/a> were not whole for their season opener and that meant Luka Doncic<\/a> had a heavier load to carry while LeBron James<\/a> sat on the bench injured in this game against rivals Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n

So, the question while James recovers from sciatica injury on his right side, is who will fill his void and help Doncic navigate the stretch his running mate is out.<\/p>\n

The Lakers didn\u2019t get that complete answer Tuesday night, falling 119-109<\/a> to the Warriors at Crypto.com Arena despite Doncic\u2019s impressive performance of a near triple-double with 43 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists.<\/p>\n

James is entering an NBA-record 23rd season, but it was the first time over his career that he has missed a season opener.<\/p>\n

He sat on the end of the Lakers\u2019 bench dressed in a double-breasted suit, cheering his teammates on, offering words of encouragement when necessary, knowing that was the only way he could help until returns to the court in mid-November.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to forget about LeBron, (but) the reality is, when you\u2019re focused on the group that you have, you\u2019ve got to make the group work,\u201d said coach JJ Redick afterward. \u201cSometimes you can just be like, \u2018Oh my God, we\u2019re gonna get LeBron back at some point.\u2019 Like it\u2019s awesome, but you are focused. I\u2019ll be honest with you, I did have one moment in that first half when we had a few possessions when we couldn\u2019t score against the zone and I thought, \u2018It\u2019d be great to have LeBron.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lakers <\/p>\n

Lakers guard Austin Reaves gets past Warriors guard Gary Payton II for a layup during the second half Friday night.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

When the Lakers went inside to center Deandre Ayton, he didn\u2019t overpower the small Warriors. Ayton got seven touches, scored 10 points and grabbed six rebounds.<\/p>\n

But he had four turnovers. One of the other issues was his teammates trying to get the ball inside to Ayton. The lobs just weren\u2019t working, a big reason why the Lakers had 19 turnovers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, today, I was realizing I\u2019m probably a confusing big (center), whether I can roll and stand in the pocket, probably gets a little difficult for them sometimes,\u201d Ayton said. \u201cI\u2019m so used to the league having that low man on me. Sometimes I can\u2019t even finish a roll, and I tiny bit linger around the free-throw area just to be available for him.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

Austin Reaves showed he was up to the task with James out, producing 26 points, nine rebounds and five assists.<\/p>\n

But he had a team-high five turnovers and picked up five fouls by the third quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t had a lot of time together as a complete group,\u201d Reaves said. \u201cObviously, we\u2019re still not complete, but we\u2019re just gonna continue to build, get better, and learn how to play alongside one another. I mean, I had five turnovers tonight, and I don\u2019t think a couple of them are just dumb. But a couple of them were just miscommunications on where I needed to throw a pass to DA (Deandre Ayton). It wasn\u2019t the wrong read. It was the wrong pass at the right time, basically. So it\u2019s just like learning those little things, and you learn those on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Warriors, meanwhile, had four players score in double-figures and that was a big difference in the game. Jimmy Butler led the Warriors with 31 points, Stephen Curry had 23 and Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield each had 17.<\/p>\n

The Lakers fell into a hole in the third quarter, going down by 17 points, putting them in catch-up mode.<\/p>\n

They were outscored 35-25 in the third. They allowed the Warriors to make 60% of their shots, 50% (five-for-10) of their three-pointers.<\/p>\n

Even with the Lakers cutting that deficit to six points in the fourth, their poor play in the third doomed them again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trend I see is that we continue to be a terrible third-quarter team to start,\u201d Redick said. \u201cThat was last year. That was the preseason. Gotta rethink some things and it\u2019s, you know, a two-way thing with the guys. What do they need at halftime to make sure they\u2019re ready to play? They\u2019re not ready to play to start the third quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Etc.<\/p>\n

The Lakers picked up the rookie option on Dalton Knecht for $4.2 million for the 2026-27 season, according to people not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. \u2026 The Lakers said that forward\/center Maxi Kleber has an oblique strain and will be reevaluated in two to three weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lakers were not whole for their season opener and that meant Luka Doncic had a heavier load…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":323403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[38124,68967,1582,276,75995,1910,161529,2961,8604,3363,224,5337,3365,449,161531,24566,161530,103594,38272,98285],"class_list":{"0":"post-323402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-assist","9":"tag-bench","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-com-arena","13":"tag-game","14":"tag-good-guy","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-lakers","17":"tag-lebron-james","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-luka-doncic","21":"tag-point","22":"tag-reave","23":"tag-rebound","24":"tag-rival-stephen-curry","25":"tag-season-opener","26":"tag-third-quarter","27":"tag-warrior"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115416965360120876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}