First quarter fury fuels Lakers to seventh straight victory

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Lakers did not deliver a delicacy in the opening quarter; they delivered a detonation.

Twelve minutes. Forty-six points. A blitz of such brutal beauty it felt less like a basketball quarter and more like a statement of their intention to dominate.

The Lakers started the game scorching the Earth; they started apocalyptically, turning the game's opening act into a highlight reel and the Pelicans into spectators.

By the time the smoke cleared from that first-quarter fusillade, the result felt inevitable. The Lakers' 133-121 victory, their seventh straight, was forged in that initial firestorm.

But the path from that pyre to the final buzzer was a reminder that style points are ornamental, but winning is architectural. It is built on free throws, fortified by blocks, and finished with force.

"We challenged the guys before the game," Coach JJ Redick said. "We wanted to get off to a good start. We wanted to play with the right intent. Thought we did that."

The intent was incarnate in Luka Dončić. He scored 20 of his 34 points in that historic first, a one-man symphony of step-backs and drives.

"He gets our offense rolling early," Austin Reaves said, who added 33 points of his own, his efficiency a scalpel to Dončić's hammer. "The gravity that he has on the court… it's impossible to guard him."

Yet for all the offensive fireworks—the season-high 46 in a quarter, the 77 in a half—the game's true backbone was forged of less glamorous stuff.

The Pelicans, scrappy and short-handed, fought back. New Orleans shot a better field-goal percentage (50.5% to 48.3%). They rained threes at a 50% clip. They won the paint, 62-46. By every conventional measure, they played winning basketball.

Except for two. The block column and the free-throw line.

The Lakers hosted a block party, a swatting soiree that saw them reject ten Pelican attempts. Deandre Ayton, the anchor, was the bouncer, turning away four shots and altering a dozen more. His 22-point, 12-rebound double-double was an afterthought to his defensive dominance.

"I take all the pressure on the defensive end," Ayton said, "I'm the anchor."

But the real math, the brutal arithmetic of the NBA, was settled 27 feet from the hoop. The Lakers lived at the charity stripe, drawing 27 fouls to the Pelicans' 14. They attempted 19 more free throws, making 16 more. In a game of runs, that was the tide that never receded.

"You know, we still scored 130," Reaves said. "I think this offense can go to another level."

Yet they didn't need another level. They needed the discipline to attack, the wisdom to draw contact, the toughness to finish through it. They turned the game into a grinding, physical plea to the officials, and the plea was answered.

The Pelicans' third-quarter rally, cutting a 26-point lead to 11, exposed a familiar Lakers lethargy.

"Sometimes you get a lead like that and… teams can get a little bored," Redick said. "That's what we're trying to get away from."

But when boredom threatened, necessity intervened. The Lakers stopped jumping for jump shots and started driving to force the officials' hand. The whistle became their weapon. While the Pelicans crafted beautiful basketball, the Lakers crafted winning basketball—a grittier, less elegant craft.

"It's encouraging," Reaves said. "Through an 82-game season, you have to figure out ways to win games… I feel like we've won in a variety of ways."

This way was a masterclass in leveraging force. Dončić's genius pulled the Pelicans' defense out of shape. Ayton's presence patrolled the paint with authoritarian zeal. And the collective, cynical savvy to hunt contact when shots weren't falling sealed the deal. It wasn't always pretty, but it was profoundly effective.

"There's a lot of slices of pizza left in the box that we can still get after," Redick said. "There's a lot of room for improvement."

The first quarter was the feast. The rest of the game was the cleanup—messy, arduous, essential. Los Angeles gorged on a 46-point opening, then spent the next 36 minutes digesting it, using defense as an antacid and free throws as a settle.

The win streak lives, not just on the strength of a stunning start, but on the stubborn, stat-sheet-defying will to finish.

The lesson was written in the ledger: you can outshoot the Lakers. But try to out-tough them, and you'll find yourself alone at the line, watching them pull away.