Warriors comeback vs Lakers unprecedented: 25, its the new 12

SAN FRANCISCO — It was deader than dead inside Chase Center after the first quarter Friday night, a fitting graveyard-like atmosphere on the eve of Halloween.A motivated Luka Doncic exploded for 21 points and the Lakers built a 23-point lead by the time Steve Kerr gathered his team on the Warriors’ bench between periods.They should have been spooked.It was about the worst 12 minutes of basketball Golden State had played this season.It appeared Kerr’s squad was headed for a second rout in 10 days at the hands of the Lakers.Then, everything flipped.Austin Reaves got to the foul line on the Lakers’ first possession of the second quarter, extending their advantage to 25 points, 40-15, and that’s as wide as it would get.De’Anthony Melton scored the next seven points, and Golden State went on to come all the way back — and then some — for a convincing 112-95 win over Doncic and the Lakers.From the end of the first-quarter timeout on, the Warriors outscored Los Angeles 97-57.“I don’t think I got too upset.

I was trying to stay poised,” Kerr said.“We couldn’t have played any worse, and they knew it.

I didn’t need to tell them.I just said it’s a long game.“I don’t think I said anything about the modern NBA — I didn’t say anything to our players — but what I would [say] is 25, it’s the new 12.

These games happen nightly in the league.”They don’t usually happen quite like this, though.In fact, the Warriors’ Jekyll-and-Hyde act produced a kind of game that had never been seen in the NBA, at least not in recent history.As poor as the opening period went for the Warriors, the second was just as bad for JJ Redick’s squad.

By halftime, Golden State had erased the entire deficit to pull even at 53.It was the first time since the NBA started tracking play-by-play (in 1996-97) that a team had trailed by 25 or more in the first half and come back to even the score at halftime.The final 17-point margin of victory was the largest by a...