Los Angeles Lakers Coach Luke Walton put his hands on his hips and calmly gazed onto the court where the unthinkable was happening.
The Lakers didn’t just beat the Golden State Warriors on Friday night at Staples Center. They throttled the defending Western Conference champions, 117-97.
They beat them doing what the Warriors have historically done best. They shut down a potentially lethal three-point game, they moved the ball more gracefully, and when the purple and gold streamers fell from the rafters, they put their arms around each other, grinning.
But the second the game ended, Walton’s mind reset immediately. This game was progress, but he wants more.
“We’re looking at the big picture,” Walton said. “The big picture isn’t beating Golden State and losing Sunday night at home. The big picture is we make it really hard for teams to come into Staples Center and win. The big picture is we did what we’re supposed to do. We won at home.”
Lakers forward Julius Randle finished with 20 points, 14 rebounds and a block against the Warriors’ Draymond Green.
“He’s a monster,” Walton said.
Lou Williams finished with 20 points, part of a 61-point output by the Lakers’ bench players. D’Angelo Russell scored 17 and the Lakers finished with 26 assists and 51 rebounds.
“That means we’re sharing the ball, we’re playing like a team and we’re fighting,” Walton said.
The game was supposed to be a thrashing, but one administered by the visitors. It was a young Lakers team without a single All-Star, with a first-year head coach who learned the trade in his two seasons as a Warriors assistant under his mentor, Steve Kerr. Sure, the Warriors were playing the second of back-to-back games, but they were supposed to so far outclass the Lakers that none of that would matter.
This was a team that won an NBA-record 73 games last season – including a 39-4 record with Walton running the team in place of an ailing Kerr – and then signed a former league MVP, Kevin Durant, to add to their arsenal.
Walton’s Lakers will be judged this season by more than just wins and losses, but the wins matter to them. At every stop of a cross-country, four-game trip, they fought for them. And though they went 1-3 on that trip, their only win came against the only undefeated team they faced – the Atlanta Hawks.
On a day’s rest, they returned to Staples, greeted by a tepidly optimistic crowd that hadn’t witnessed a home loss from a Luke Walton team yet.
The Lakers opened the game with an 8-0 run that Golden State quickly, and predictably, countered with its own 7-0 run.
Only, faced with adversity against the team that still might be the best in the NBA, the Lakers didn’t fold. As the Warriors struggled with their shooting, the Lakers built a 12-point lead in the first quarter. They ended the quarter up 24-15.
For the previous week, Walton had said the Lakers were improving defensively. On Friday night that improvement showed. The Warriors’ 15 points in the first were the fewest they’ve scored in a quarter all season, and the fewest allowed by the Lakers.