The Warriors Lakers rivalry delivered one of the wildest nights of the young NBA season on Friday, October 30, 2026, as Golden State stormed back from 23 points down to beat the Los Angeles Lakers 112-95 at Chase Center in San Francisco in the opening night of NBA Cup group play. Stephen Curry scored 31 points, Luka Doncic answered with 37 for the Lakers, and a third-quarter move by Curry that sent Doncic to the floor became the viral moment of a game that swung from a blowout to a rout in the other direction.
Golden State trailed 38-15 after the first quarter, tied the game 53-53 by halftime, led 85-80 after three quarters and then pulled away in the fourth. The comeback made Golden State the first team in the shot-clock era, which began in 1954-55, to trail by as many as 23 points after the opening quarter and still be level by halftime, according to USA Today.
The Lakers came out firing and the home crowd went quiet. Doncic scored 21 points in the first quarter, more than Golden State's whole team managed in the period, and Los Angeles led 38-15 after 12 minutes. The Lakers' lead grew to 25 points early in the second quarter, and the Chase Center crowd, which had earlier taunted Doncic with chants backing rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, had little to cheer.
Then the game flipped completely. Golden State answered with a 38-15 second quarter of its own, erasing the deficit possession by possession until the scoreboard read 53-53 at halftime. Curry, who had 14 points at the break, led the charge, and the same crowd that had been silenced in the first quarter was roaring again by the end of the second.
The third quarter belonged to the two stars going head to head. With 6:21 left in the period, Curry put together a series of dribble moves that sent Doncic tumbling to the floor, then stepped back behind the three-point line and drained the shot. The play cut into the Lakers' lead at the time and immediately spread across social media, with NBC Sports Bay Area calling it the highlight of the night. Doncic, never one to back down, answered with a basket of his own on the next trip down the floor to quiet the crowd again. Golden State still led 85-80 entering the fourth quarter, with Curry on 22 points and Doncic on 35.
The fourth quarter was all Warriors. Golden State opened the period on an 11-0 run, according to live reporting, stretching the lead to double figures, and the Lakers never threatened again. The final margin, 112-95, completed a 17-point win in a game the Warriors had trailed by 23, a swing of 40 points from the low point to the finish.
Friday's game was a rematch with a backstory. When the teams opened the season against each other on October 21 in Los Angeles, the Lakers won 127-105, but the lasting story was the running battle between Doncic and Lendeborg, the Warriors rookie selected 11th overall out of the University of Michigan. Lendeborg, given the daunting assignment of guarding Doncic on his NBA debut, held the Lakers star to 1-of-6 shooting as his primary defender in that game, although Doncic still scored 28 points. Afterward, Lendeborg said he had lost all respect for the Lakers veteran, and the two traded words throughout the opener.
The rematch was staged on the first night of NBA Cup action, the league's in-season tournament, now in its fourth iteration, which tipped off on October 30 with a slate of 10 games that all counted toward Cup group play. The Halloween-eve setting added to the theatre: Lendeborg arrived at Chase Center dressed as horror movie icon Michael Myers, a nod both to the date and to the revenge mission he had talked about. The intimidation attempt did not faze Doncic at first. His first points of the night came on a three-pointer right over Lendeborg's head, and when guarded by the rookie in the first quarter he went 1-for-3, while scoring 21 points against everyone else.
The early-season form of both teams made the result harder to predict. Curry entered Friday's game averaging 28.8 points per game, and Golden State had just produced one of the feel-good performances of the week days earlier. The Lakers, meanwhile, arrived at 4-1, their only loss so far coming against the Portland Trail Blazers. By the end of Friday night, Golden State stood at 3-3 and the Lakers at 4-2, with the Cup group standings now part of the early-season picture for both clubs.
What made the Warriors Lakers comeback historic was not just the size of it, but the speed of it. Trailing by 23 points after one quarter is usually the end of the story in the NBA. Golden State needed only one quarter to erase it entirely, matching the Lakers' 38-15 first quarter with a 38-15 second quarter of its own. No team in the shot-clock era had ever trailed by that much after the first quarter and been level by halftime, and the Warriors did it on a night when their biggest star was still warming up: Curry had only 14 points at the break before finishing with 31.
The final numbers told the story of two stars and two very different supporting casts on the night. Curry finished 11-of-23 from the field and 8-of-14 from three-point range, with six assists and four rebounds in just under 31 minutes. Doncic finished 12-of-27 from the field, 6-of-16 from deep and 7-of-8 from the free-throw line, with seven rebounds and five assists in more than 37 minutes. Lendeborg, the rookie at the centre of the pre-game drama, finished with six points in just over 24 minutes, a quiet night on the scoresheet after all the noise around the matchup.
Curry's night also carried a piece of history beyond the result. During the game he scored the 26,669th point of his career, passing Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins for 18th place on the NBA's all-time scoring list, according to Bleacher Report. That moved Curry ahead of Wilkins, Tim Duncan, Paul Pierce, John Havlicek and Kevin Garnett on the list. DeMar DeRozan, now with the Denver Nuggets, sits 16th with 26,763 points, making him the next name in Curry's sights as the season goes on.
The loudest reaction of the night came from the stands before the basketball took over. During the NBA Cup matchup at Chase Center, Warriors fans broke into chants mocking Doncic in support of Lendeborg, their rookie. The move backfired instantly in the first quarter, as Doncic outscored the whole Golden State team by himself and the Lakers built their 38-15 lead. Later in his big first half, after sinking a three-pointer in front of the home crowd, Doncic turned and shouted back at the fans, a moment captured on the broadcast and widely shared online.
The Curry-Doncic duel in the third quarter drew the night's biggest online reaction. NBC Sports Bay Area described how Curry stunned even himself by putting Doncic on the floor during the third quarter, then capped the sequence with the step-back three-pointer that brought the Chase Center crowd to its feet. USA Today noted that Doncic did not shy away from the moment, answering with a shot of his own on the next possession. The back-and-forth between the two stars, rather than the Lendeborg-Doncic matchup that had been billed before tip-off, became the defining duel of the game, with the broadcast team noting that the rookie-versus-superstar battle never truly materialised on the court.
Around the league, the first night of NBA Cup play drew attention for its drama elsewhere too, with USA Today's winners-and-losers roundup noting ejections and hot starts across the 10-game slate. But no game on the night matched the Warriors-Lakers swing, and no single play travelled further than Curry's third-quarter move on Doncic.
For Golden State, the win matters beyond a single night because of what it says about the team's resilience. A team that can fall behind by 23 points in its own building, in a tournament game, and still win by 17 has a belief that is hard to coach. The comeback also gave the Warriors a statement win in NBA Cup group play, where every result counts toward reaching the knockout rounds, and it avenged the 127-105 season-opening loss to the same opponent nine days earlier.
For the Lakers, the defeat is a warning about how quickly a big lead can vanish against a championship-calibre opponent. Doncic's 37 points showed again that he can take over a game single-handedly, but Los Angeles scored only 42 points in the second half after putting up 53 in the first, and the offence stalled badly once Golden State's defence tightened. How the Lakers respond to a collapse of this size, rather than the collapse itself, will shape the early read on their season.
For Curry, the night added another line to a career that keeps climbing the record books. Passing Wilkins for 18th on the all-time scoring list, in the same game as a 31-point comeback win over a rival, is the kind of night that defines a legacy. At his current pace, and with DeRozan's 16th-place total of 26,763 points within reach, Curry's climb through the top 20 is now a running storyline of the season, not just a footnote.
Both teams now turn back to the regular season and to the rest of NBA Cup group play, where Friday's result already shapes the standings. Golden State, now 3-3, will look to build on the comeback and carry the defensive intensity of the second half into its next games, while the Lakers, now 4-2, will look to steady themselves after a second-half collapse. The Cup format means the two sides could meet again with knockout implications later in the tournament, and after Friday's drama, a third meeting between Curry and Doncic this season would be appointment viewing.
The Lendeborg-Doncic subplot is unlikely to fade either. The rookie's Halloween costume arrival, his pre-game words and his quiet six-point night leave the rivalry unresolved, and the next meeting between these teams will revive it instantly. For now, though, the story of Friday night is simpler: a 23-point hole, a historic halftime tie, a viral Curry move, and a 112-95 win that reminded everyone why the Warriors-Lakers rivalry remains one of the NBA's biggest stages.
Golden State beat the Los Angeles Lakers 112-95 at Chase Center in San Francisco, in an NBA Cup group-stage game played on Friday, October 30, 2026.
Stephen Curry scored 31 points for Golden State, shooting 11-of-23 from the field and 8-of-14 from three-point range. Luka Doncic led all scorers with 37 points for the Lakers, including 21 in the first quarter alone.
Golden State trailed 38-15 after the first quarter, a 23-point deficit, then outscored Los Angeles 38-15 in the second quarter to tie the game 53-53 at halftime. It was the first time in the shot-clock era that a team trailed by as many as 23 after one quarter and was level by halftime.
With 6:21 left in the third quarter, Curry used a series of dribble moves that sent Doncic to the floor, then hit a step-back three-pointer. Doncic answered with a basket on the next possession, but Golden State led 85-80 after three quarters and pulled away in the fourth.
Curry scored the 26,669th point of his career during the game, passing Dominique Wilkins for 18th place on the NBA's all-time scoring list.
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