LeBron James made history, but Nikola Jokic's Denver Nuggets got the 124-114 win over James' L.A. Lakers. Jokic dominated with a game-high 35 points on 16-25 field goal shooting plus 10 rebounds and seven assists. His +16 plus/minus number led both teams. Plus/minus numbers can be "noisy" and should be placed in context, but with Jokic there is a large data sample demonstrating that the Nuggets are an elite level team when he is on the court and a much weaker team when he is not on the court. Michael Porter Jr. contributed 25 points on 10-10 field goal shooting, and Jamal Murray added 24 points plus a team-high 11 assists. James led the Lakers with 26 points, and he became the first player in pro basketball history to score more than 40,000 regular season points. Rui Hachimura chipped in 23 points, and Anthony Davis scored 17 points while grabbing a team-high 11 rebounds--but no other Laker had more than four rebounds, and the Nuggets outrebounded the Lakers 47-31.
The Nuggets swept the Lakers 4-0 in the 2023 Western Conference Finals by dominating in the second half, and they used that same formula to win this game: the Lakers led 66-58 at halftime, but in the second half the Nuggets outscored the Lakers 66-48 and outshot the Lakers .636 to .476. The Lakers played well offensively overall--scoring 114 points while shooting .528 from the field, including .414 from three point range--but their defense is just not at a championship level. In other words, what I have been saying about the Lakers for several years is still true: they don't need "lasers" (elite three point shooters), Frank Vogel was not the problem, Russell Westbrook was not the problem, the "tremendous trio" that the Lakers received in the Westbrook trade was not the answer, and the Lakers will not be a legitimate championship contender until they consistently play elite defense.
The Lakers led 110-108 with 4:11 to go in the fourth quarter after James made a driving layup, but the Nuggets closed the game with a 16-4 run. James scored 13 fourth quarter points on 6-8 field goal shooting while playing all 12 minutes. Murray led the Nuggets with nine fourth quarter points, while Jokic scored six points on 3-3 field goal shooting in eight minutes. Jokic led both teams with a +12 plus/minus number in the fourth quarter.
Since James joined the Lakers in 2018, he has been stacking up individual accomplishments, but the Lakers have not accomplished much collectively other than winning the 2020 "bubble" championship: the Lakers missed the playoffs in 2019 and 2022, lost in the first round in 2021, and--as noted above--were swept by the Nuggets in the 2023 Western Conference Finals. James' personal milestones during that period are notable:
On January 23, 2018, James became the youngest member of the 30,000 point club.
On February 7, 2023, James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's regular season career scoring record of 38,387 points.
Last night, James became the first player to score 40,000 career regular season points. That is a staggering number: The 10,000 point club is a milestone accomplishment that relatively few pro basketball players reach, so James is now the equivalent of a very good NBA career ahead of the 30,000 point mark! For further context, it should be noted that when LeBron James entered the NBA in 2004, the 30,000 point club had just five members: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, and Julius Erving. The 20,000 point club had 32 members (including the five players listed above). Rules changes and style of play changes have made both clubs somewhat less exclusive--the 30,000 point club now has eight members, and the 20,000 point club now has 55 members--but it is amazing that James has doubled the scoring output of all but 54 players out of the thousands who have played pro basketball for the past 75-plus years. James' durability and consistency is remarkable, as is the fact that he is still playing at an All-NBA level as a 39 year old. One hesitates to call any record unbreakable, but even with the lax defense being played in the NBA today it is difficult to foresee a player averaging 2000 points per season for 20 seasons, which is what it would take to match James' current total--and James conceivably could pad that total by 2000 or more points!