Yaxel Lendeborg fouls out with six points in his Luka Dončić rematch, and Steve Kerr says ‘everybody has nights like this’

Yaxel Lendeborg walked into Chase Center on Friday dressed as Michael Myers, eight days after saying he had “lost all respect” for Luka Dončić. He walked out with six points, five turnovers, six fouls and a minus-20, the worst plus-minus of any Golden State player, in a 112-95 win over the Los Angeles Lakers that his teammates had to win for him.

The rookie did not hide from it. “Trying not to wet the bed as bad as I did,” Lendeborg said when asked what lesson he took from his sixth NBA game. “Or when you’re having moments like that, try to lean in on your teammates a little more. I tried talking to them, but it’s like, I couldn’t get myself out of it.”

Yaxel Lendeborg’s lesson from his sixth NBA game: “Try not to wet the bed as bad as I did.”

“I’m a big dweller on bad games.”

“Them boys had my back today. Steph Curry did his thing.”

Full Yaxel postgame sound pic.twitter.com/q57EJCNM4M

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) October 31, 2026

A rematch that never became one

The first meeting set this one up. In the season opener in Los Angeles on Oct. 21, the Lakers won 127-105, Lendeborg drew a technical while matched up with Dončić, and afterward he said he had “a lot of respect for him” before seeing “all the whining and complaining” up close. The Lakers star answered on Friday with 21 points in the first quarter on 7-of-12 shooting, five of them threes, as Los Angeles went up 38-15.

Lendeborg did not take a shot in that quarter. He was called for a loose-ball foul and an offensive foul in the first five minutes, picked up his fourth foul in the third quarter and fouled out with 2:45 left. He finished 2 of 3 from the field in 24 minutes. Dončić finished with 37 points, seven rebounds and five assists, and was given a technical late in the third quarter as the crowd chanted at him.

Lendeborg said the plan had been restraint: stay poised, avoid a back-and-forth with Dončić and “keep my cool.” “There was a lot of moments where I could have crashed out in a way,” he said. “But I stayed calm, a little too calm, I feel like.” Next time, he said, he wants to “keep a smile and try to lean in on my guys.”

Kerr: ‘Everybody has nights like this’

Steve Kerr has spent the first two weeks of the season describing Lendeborg as a rookie learning something new every game, and he framed Friday the same way. “You can’t dwell on tough games,” Kerr said. “Young players tend to dwell on things a little bit, and then all of a sudden there’s another game, and another game after that. You can’t let anything sort of build up. You have to move forward. So he’ll do that. He’s a really confident guy. Tonight just didn’t go his way, but everybody has nights like this.”

Kerr pointed back to Wednesday in Minneapolis, when Lendeborg scored 26 points on 11-of-20 shooting with nine rebounds and seven turnovers in a 119-114 win. “He’s six games into his career and he’s kind of seen everything already,” Kerr said, from “Luka talking all the trash, and him talking back” on opening night to Friday, when “he was out of it in terms of rhythm.”

The fix, in Kerr’s view, is finding other ways into a game. “We’ll watch the tape with him, we’ll show him things he can do better,” he said. “On a night like tonight, you can get to the line, get an offensive rebound. You can find some rhythm in other ways other than just creating a shot for yourself.” The key, he said, is that “you bounce back on Sunday and you recognize that it is a marathon.”

The comeback around him

The rest of the roster made the night bearable. Golden State answered the 38-15 first quarter with a 38-15 second to tie the game at 53 at halftime, making the Warriors the first team in the shot-clock era, playoffs included, to trail by 23 or more after one quarter and be level or ahead at the break. The 17-point final margin was the largest in that era for a team down 20 or more after the first quarter.

Stephen Curry scored 31 with eight threes, passing Dominique Wilkins for 18th on the NBA’s career scoring list. Brandin Podziemski added 21, De’Anthony Melton 16 and Georges Niang 11, with Niang a plus-21 off the bench. The Warriors made 22 threes; the Lakers committed 22 turnovers.

Lendeborg said Draymond Green found him after the final buzzer. “Just giving me game,” he said. “Basically telling me they had our backs. Not to be too down on it. And to just keep being myself. Keep being positive.” Curry’s run of big nights after turning 35 is laid out in our interactive on his 40-point games.

What’s next

Golden State, now 3-3, hosts the LA Clippers on Sunday, November 1, and the Phoenix Suns on Monday, November 2. The Lakers, 4-2, host the Toronto Raptors on Sunday.