LOS ANGELES — The Lakers, like most Western Conference teams competing for a spot in the playoffs outside of the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, understand how precious each game is in the final 1½ weeks of the regular season.
With seeds Nos. 3-8 separated by just 2½ games, one poor stretch of play or untimely loss could be the difference between having home-court advantage in the playoffs, making the top six outright or having to compete in the Play-In Tournament.
The Lakers, who entered Thursday night’s home game against the Golden State Warriors in third place in the West, played with the desperation and energy of a team looking to separate themselves from the rest of the pack.
But their attention to detail wasn’t where it needed to be, leading to a 123-116 loss at Crypto.com Arena.
The Lakers (46-30) fell back into fourth place in the West after the loss, having briefly moved to third after the Denver Nuggets’ loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night when Denver sat most of its rotation players.
The Warriors (45-31), who moved into fifth place behind a 37-point, six-assist night from Steph Curry, are now just one game behind the Lakers.
“At the end of the day, you want to win every game,” Lakers star LeBron James said. “If you don’t, that’s why we put ourselves in position where we can move up at times or … if we don’t take care of business, we’re going to do down. It’s bunched up, so every game matters. And it should be that way.”
James led the Lakers with 33 points, nine assists and five rebounds. Austin Reaves made nine 3-pointers and finished with 31 points (20 in the fourth quarter), six assists and three rebounds. Rui Hachimura added 24 points, six rebounds and three assists.
Luka Doncic had 19 points, eight rebounds and seven assists but endured a poor shooting night. Doncic shot 6 for 17 from the field and missed all six of his 3-point attempts.
“Wasn’t his night,” Coach JJ Redick said.
It was the first time since April 7, 2023 in which Doncic, whose left (non-shooting) arm was heavily wrapped after taking a hard fall during Monday’s victory over the Houston Rockets, finished a game without making a 3-pointer.
“That’s my left [arm], so it’s fine,” Doncic said. “I was shooting with the right. It looked liked [the] left.”
The Lakers got off to a slow start on offense, but took a 22-20 lead by winning the possession battle. They only had one turnover and grabbed six offensive rebounds in the game’s first 8½ minutes.
But once the Warriors were able to flip that advantage in their favor, they also took control of the game after leading 26-22 at the end of the first quarter.
Golden State scored 12 second-chance points off of seven offensive rebounds in the second quarter, helping the Warriors take a 60-47 lead going into halftime.
The Lakers went through a 9½-minute drought between the end of the first quarter and midway through the second, missing 14 of 15 shot attempts, helping the Warriors take a 40-29 lead that grew to 13 by the end of the second after the Lakers struggled against Golden State’s switching defense.
“We just got a little stagnant,” Redick said. “Didn’t wanna move. You gotta move. You gotta play with force. You gotta get to the next thing. Just sometimes, you’d have to ask the guys, sometimes the expenditure of energy on one end and you don’t have it for the other end. I thought our guys were playing hard on defense in the first half and then just the second opportunities.”
After trailing by eight to 14 points for much of the second half, the Lakers cut their deficit to five when Reaves made a 3-pointer off an out-of-timeout play, with the Warriors leading by 121-116 with 35 seconds left.
The Lakers forced the Warriors to turn the ball over after the ensuing inbounds pass, giving the Lakers an opportunity to cut their deficit to a single possession.
But they gave the ball back to Golden State when Dorian Finney-Smith tried handing the ball to Doncic after an offensive rebound, with Jimmy Butler picking up the steal and Curry making a pair of free throws to steal the win for the Warriors.
Brandin Podziemski had 28 points, eight rebounds and six assists for the Warriors. Podziemski had a career-high eight 3-pointers on a night when Curry shot 4 for 11 from long range. Curry was coming off a 52-point effort, including 12 3-pointers, at Memphis on Tuesday.
Jonathan Kuminga added 18 points and nine rebounds off the bench for Golden State, which beat the Lakers for the first time in four games this season. The Warriors won without needing much from trade deadline acquisition Jimmy Butler, who had 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting. He had been averaging 17.3 and had 27 against Memphis.
The Warriors scored 23 second-chance points off 14 offensive rebounds – many of which led to 3-pointers.