The Brooklyn Nets, already without Jeremy Lin, got a scare early in the game, when Isaiah Whitehead‘s knee collided with Timofey Mozgov. The brief injury forced Brooklyn to call a timeout, but Whitehead remained in the game.
The Nets and Lakers got off to an evenly-matched start, as the two teams were tied at 16 with five minutes left in the first quarter. The Lakers ran into some early adversity, when point guard D’Angelo Russell picked up his third personal foul halfway through the first quarter.
The two teams traded runs late in the quarter.