LOS ANGELES — For more than a decade now, Golden State has been winning the math game on the court — and winning championships because of it.
New season, same story. In the season opener against the Lakers, the Warriors again won the math game. Golden State was +27 from 3-point range, shooting 42.5% from beyond the arc as a team, while the Lakers were hitting 25% (8-of-32). The Warriors were also +9 from the free-throw line, hitting 89.7% of their attempts, while the Lakers knocked down 60% of their shots from the line.
All that led to an opening night 119-109 Golden State win on the road, a game that showed why the Warriors can be a threat in the West, and why the Lakers have work to do.
Highlights: Warriors hold off Lakers for win
The Golden State Warriors’ strong second half helped clinch their first win of the 2025-2026 NBA season against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Jimmy Butler stabilizes Warriors
The Warriors are Stephen Curry’s team. They are also Draymond Green’s team.
On Tuesday night, they were Jimmy Butler’s team, too — 31 points, including 16-of-16 from the free throw line, plus five boards and four assists.
Butler drops 31 for Warriors in win over Lakers
Jimmy “Buckets” went to work for the Golden State Warriors on opening night with a 31-point performance against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Warriors need that.
“He provides that stability, the ability to get fouled and go to the line and settle the game down,” coach Steve Kerr said of Butler. “Never turns the ball over. So he just controls the game out there for us, and we need that.
“We’ve always been at our best when we can provide the support for Draymond and Steph’s chaos with some stability. That’s what Andre [Iguodala] did, Sean Livingston, because the chaos is really powerful, but it can also get away from us, and Jimmy just settles us down. He did a great job on that tonight.”
When Golden State traded for Butler last season, the question wasn’t on the court fit as much as off-the-court — would the alpha that is Butler clash with Curry and Green? Not yet.
“We all heard all the talk about him last year. That’s not the guy who showed up to San Francisco,” Green said of Butler. “The guy who showed up to San Francisco is the guy you saw tonight — great leader, encouraging teammates, telling guys what he see, and making corrections, settling our team down and getting us good shots.”
Notice that Kerr and Green talked about free throws and settling the team down. Before he arrived, the Warriors were near the bottom of the league in drawing fouls and getting to the line, so how much does Kerr enjoy watching Butler draw fouls?
“I enjoy it thoroughly,” Kerr said with a laugh. “It is fantastic. It affects our defense, the other team has to play against our set defense, and we get free points, we get a rest, we get a break. Jimmy completely changed our team when he arrived last year, and the free throws were a big part of that.”
Luka Doncic’s monster game not enough
One game, when the team is without its second-best player, is not enough to raise a red flag. That said, this was a concerning night for the Lakers on some fronts.
Not from Luka Doncic, who looked like he was on a mission and was everything Lakers fans could hope for and more as he scored 43 with 12 rebounds and nine assists.
Luka opens season with 43-point near triple-double
Luka Dončić posts an opening night career-high 43 points and finishes one assist shy of a triple-double as the Lakers fall to the Warriors on opening night.
Doncic was brilliant, both getting into the paint (13-of-14 shooting there) and finding the open man. Austin Reaves added 26 points and nine assists. After that duo, the Lakers need more — and they need more in the third quarter. This was a one-point game at the half, but the Warriors went on a 20-5 run in the third quarter, and that was the ballgame.
“The trend I see is that we continue to be a terrible third-quarter team to start,” Lakers coach J.J. Redick said. “That was last year, that was preseason. I will kind of rethink some things.”
It was more than just the third quarter, the Lakers shot themselves in the foot much of the night. There was a lack of connectivity that showed on both ends of the court. There were mental mistakes. Deandre Ayton was not the aggressive player Los Angeles needs, finishing with 10 points but floating through the game at points (to be fair, this is a bad matchup for him). The bench added 18 points (the Warriors got 33). The Lakers’ defense also wasn’t good enough, as Golden State had a 119 offensive rating (that would have been top five in the league a year ago).
“I think if you look at this game, like a microcosm of this game, we did enough good things to put ourselves in a position to win for most of the game. When we didn’t do those things, they were self-inflicted,” Redick said.
Part of what the Lakers lack is not having LeBron James. That matters. And the Lakers have a lot of new faces, too.
“I think it’s time. We haven’t had a lot of time together as a complete group,” Reaves said. “Obviously, we’re still not complete, but we’re just going to continue to build and get better and learn how to play alongside one another. I mean, I had five turnovers tonight. A couple of them were just dumb, but a couple of them were just miscommunications on where I needed to throw a pass to DA [Deandre Ayton]. Like it wasn’t the wrong read, it was the wrong pass at the right time, basically. So, it’s just learning those little things, and you learn those on the fly.”
Jonathan Kuminga’s big game
Jonathan Kuminga was the soap opera of the offseason: Would the Warriors trade him? Did he want to be in the Bay Area? Did the Warriors want him back? Trade talk about sending him to Sacramento lingered right up until his contract got done — and that contract is very tradable.
If Kuminga plays like this, the Warriors are not going to want to trade him. He had 17 points, hit 4-of-6 from 3-point range, and added nine rebounds and six assists (one off his career high). He did all that while having the impossible task of guarding Doncic much of the night.
“I think he’s really, really matured,” Kerr said. “You know, he’s had a great camp. We’ve had some really good conversations. Think he has a better understanding of what we need …
“I think he just has a better sense of what’s needed now compared to past years. And I think Jimmy has really helped him, too. Jimmy has really talked to him a lot during camp. He’s taken him aside after practices.”
“I just want to help JK be great,” Butler said of working with Kuminga. “I mean, he’s got so much like just raw talent, and he’s so aggressive, he’s athletic, he’s super smart, and I’m trying to teach him a little bit of what I see throughout the game.”
It’s one game, but it’s the kind of start from Kuminga that is going to get Kerr to trust him more.
