The Warriors turned a runaway start by the Lakers into a 112-95 win in their NBA Cup opener, erasing a 23-point first-quarter deficit and finishing with the kind of comeback that rarely survives the first 12 minutes. Stephen Curry scored 31 points, and the game was still being remade long before the final buzzer.
The first quarter belonged to Luka Dončić, who scored 21 points and hit five three-pointers as the Lakers built a 38-15 lead. Then the game flipped. Golden State outscored the Lakers 38-15 in the second quarter to tie it by halftime, with De’Anthony Melton scoring 13 points off the bench in that stretch and helping change the rhythm of the night.
That kind of swing is what made the result stand out beyond the final score. The Warriors became the first team to trail by at least 23 points after one quarter and still tie the game by halftime, and their 17-point victory was the largest by any team to come back from a deficit of at least 25 points in the last 30 seasons. In a league where first-quarter explosions often decide the shape of a night, this one did the opposite.
The turning point also produced the image that will travel with the result. In the third quarter, Curry stepped back and made a three-pointer after Dončić fell to the floor, a shot that captured the shift in control as much as the scoreboard did. By then, the Lakers’ fast start had been stripped of its force, and Golden State had taken over the pace, the shot quality and the game itself.
The opener was part of the first night of the 2026 NBA Cup, a slate that also had the 76ers, Knicks, Heat and Warriors in the mix across opening-night coverage. But this one separated itself because it was not just a win; it was a reversal so complete that the early deficit became the footnote. The only question left is whether Golden State can carry the same edge into what comes next, because after a result like this, the bar for every following night is suddenly much higher.
