perspective,” head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said, stammering slightly, on USC’s postgame radio show.

“As good as anything I’ve ever seen,” she proclaimed, a few sentences later.

It was impossible, truly, to encapsulate what happened here. The sheer flow-state that Watkins found, from tip to buzzer. She dropped 25 first-half points, and smothered UCLA and star big Lauren Betts with five fourth-quarter blocks, finishing with eight on the night.

Fellow star Kiki Iriafen, who’d struggled for much of the night, stepped up big in the fourth quarter with nine points and an effective game-sealing and-one layup — off a feed from Watkins — to put USC up 67-57 with 2:25 left. Backup center Clarice Akunwafo finished with zero points in 21 minutes, but battled star Betts effectively all night, UCLA’s big putting up 18 points and 13 rebounds but on just 5-of-13 shooting.

They played, indeed, this Thursday night, on Feb. 13. But this matchup, with Issa Rae and Hart and new Los Angeles Spark Kelsey Plum peering from courtside seats, wasn’t nearly about Feb. 13 as it was a peek ahead to March. At the end of UCLA’s practice Wednesday, Betts told her undefeated program she was excited for us to show this next step, a local heavyweight matchup turning into one of the most-celebrated regular-season matchups in recent local collegiate basketball memory.

“I’m sorta calling it,” UCLA coach Cori Close said Wednesday, “a Final Four dress rehearsal.”

And when the curtain unveiled Thursday, Watkins took center stage. For the better part of a month, she’d been trapped in a haze of self-criticism, the sheer bun-sporting joy that had inspired so many girls to follow her path draining away under a slew of missed jumpers. Her shoulders slouched, her face turning blank, throughout a dour 5-of-21 shooting night in a win over Ohio State, a video of Lindsay Gottlieb trying to speak to a stone-faced Watkins going viral over the weekend.

As soon as she took hardwood Thursday, though, pressure had melted away under languid movements, chucking up a half-court shot in her warmups for the heck of it. And Watkins came out firing, carrying USC early against UCLA. First came three triples in the first seven minutes, Harlem-Globetrotter-style play where she fell, somehow gathered her dribble in one motion, and fired off a 3 that dropped home. Then came a nasty turnaround jumper in the second quarter, a 180-degree rotation from the elbow, the flow-state returned.

UCLA refused to let Watkins alone pen the story of Thursday night’s bout, though. After a two-headed center duo of Rayah Marshall and Akunwafo had success early in containing UCLA’s Betts, she got going late in the second quarter, dropping in a layup and finding Kendall Dudley on a pretty cut. A couple midrange buckets by Londynn Jones, and the Bruins had punched right back with a 10-0 run to cut USC’s lead to 38-35 by the break.

As blue-and-gold transcendent big went toe-to-toe with cardinal-and-gold transcendent guard in the second half, though, UCLA adjusted better to Watkins than USC did to Betts. As Watkins single-handedly carried USC’s offense on her back — the rest of the Trojans’ roster going all of 4-of-19 in the first half — the Bruins sent a bevy of second-level help at her, holding USC without a field goal for the first few minutes of the third quarter. Betts, meanwhile, began to feast, scoring the first five points of the second half and finishing a roaring and-one layup.

Jones nailed a triple to give the Bruins a 45-38 lead with seven minutes left, and USC’s hopes seemed finished, simply too reliant on Watkins for a lift.

But she had found her joy, again, and smothered UCLA in the second half of a raucous win.