Luka Doncic punks Warriors rookie in season opener

For the first 20 minutes of the 2026-27 season, the Golden State Warriors looked pretty good against the Los Angeles Lakers. After that? Not so much.

After Will Richard’s dunk got the Warriors within a point at 49-48, the Lakers closed the quarter with a 17-4 run that featured two personal fouls and a technical from rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, one of Walker Kessler’s 10 dunks, and a half-court buzzer-beater from Doncic, clearly inspired by Yaxel’s trash talk.

The offense and defense fell apart after that, and the Lakers invoked Lawler’s Law with 28 seconds to go in the third quarter by scoring their 100th point. By three minutes into the final quarter, Steve Kerr was clearing his bench, not that it looked all that different in a game where the Warriors had five players out.

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The final margin was 127-105, and it really wasn’t that close. Want to know how bad it got? Bronny James played seven whole minutes (he scored two points).

It was a brutal introduction to the NBA for the Warriors’ No. 11 overall pick from this draft. In fairness, that has happened to a lot of players who tried to guard Luka Doncic, who finished with 28 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists, along with six turnovers. Lendeborg had 12 points, three rebounds, two assists, and two steals in his debut.

Arguably, the game started to slip away when Draymond Green picked up his third foul and had to sit early in the second quarter. He led the Warriors with eight assists in 21 minutes, scoring two points and committing four turnovers.

Steph Curry started out hot, scoring 16 points in the first quarter on 7-for-9 shooting, along with two threes in just under eight minutes. Then he missed all four of his second-quarter shots, though he got two steals and made all four of his foul shots. He finished with 23 points in 21 minutes, with his night ending quite early.

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The combination of Green and Al Horford did very little to contain Kessler, who was a perfect 12-for-12 from the field with nine rebounds and two blocks. He finished with the most dunks by any Laker since Shaquille O’Neal and the first perfect shooting night with at least…

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Publish date : 2026-10-22 04:48:00

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