The beauty and frustration of opening night in the NBA season is that months and months of anticipation leads to a game that, in the grand scheme of things, matters no more in an 82-game season than a mid-January matchup even if it feels so much bigger.

All eyes were on the Lakers as part of the first two games of the 2025-26 season as they promptly laid a big egg, Luka Dončić excluded. The new face of the Lakers could hardly have been better while his teammates could largely have hardly looked worse.

In many ways, it was the Lakers fans have come to expect in recent years. After going into the locker room down just one point, they promptly gave up a 16-4 run in the opening five minutes and were outscored by 10 in the period.

Then they followed that up with a rally in the fourth that is

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