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      LeBron James Keeps the World Watching

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      LeBron James sat in the visitors locker room at Madison Square Garden with ice on his 38-year-old knees and 28 more points to his name after his Los Angeles Lakers beat the Knicks in overtime. James’s teammate Anthony Davis teased him about how close he was to breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s N.B.A. career scoring record, then about 90 points away.Suddenly, James remembered something. His mother, Gloria James, was set to go on vacation soon. She might miss his record-breaking game.He called her on speakerphone, with a dozen attentive reporters close by. He asked when she was leaving, reminding her every once in a while, lest she disclose too much, that reporters could hear the conversation. Eventually, he looked around, sheepishly, and said he would call her later.“I love you,” he said. Then, just before he ended the call, he added: “I love you more.”It was typical James: He brings you along for the ride, but on his terms, revealing what he wants to reveal and no more. It is perhaps the only way someone who has been so famous for most of his life could survive the machine of modern celebrity.As he has closed in on Abdul-Jabbar’s record of 38,387 points, the very idea of what it means to be a star has shifted since James scored his first two points on Oct. 29, 2003. And James has helped define that shift. He has risen above the din of social media celebrities and 24-hour news cycles, buoyed by the basketball fans who love him or love to hate him.James, at age 38, is closing in on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s N.B.A. career scoring record while playing with the energy of a much younger version of himself.Ashley Landis/Associated PressHe has been a selfie-snapping tour guide for this journey, with a portfolio that now extends well beyond the court. He has a production company and a show on HBO. He’s acted in a few movies and received some good reviews. His foundation has helped hundreds of students in his hometown Akron, Ohio, and a public school the foundation helps run there, the I Promise School, focuses on children who struggle academically. His opinions are covered as news, given far more weight than those of almost any other athlete.“Hopefully I made an impact enough so people appreciate what I did, and still appreciate what I did off the floor as well, even when I’m done,” James said in an interview. “But I don’t live for that. I live for my family, for my friends and my community that needs that voice.”Basketball Is the ‘Main Thing’In early 2002, James was a high school junior and on the cover of Sports Illustrated. News didn’t travel as quickly as it does now. Not everyone had cellphones, and the ones they had couldn’t livestream videos of whatever anyone did. Social media meant chat rooms on AOL or Yahoo. Facebook had yet to launch, and the deluge of social networking apps was years away.“Thank God I didn’t have social media; that’s all I can say,” James said in October when asked to reflect on his entry into the league.As a teenage star, he was spared the incessant gaze of social media and the bullying and harsh criticism that most likely would have come with it.But social media, in its many changing forms, has also helped people express their personalities and share their lives with others. It lets them define themselves — something particularly useful for public figures whose stories get told one way or another.James began thinking about that early in his career.His media and production firm, now called the SpringHill Company, made a documentary about James and his high school teammates titled “More Than a Game” in 2008. It also developed “The Shop,” an HBO show James sometimes appears on with celebrity guests, including the former President Barack Obama and the rapper Travis Scott, talking like friends in a barbershop.James has built a portfolio of movies and television shows that have expanded his influence beyond basketball.Coley Brown for The New York TimesJames likes to say that he always keeps “the main thing the main thing” — meaning that no matter what else is happening in his life, he prioritizes basketball. He honors the thing that created his fame.He led his teams to the N.B.A. finals in eight consecutive years and won championships with three different franchises. He was chosen for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award four times, and he has dished the fourth-most assists in N.B.A. history.James’s talent meant it didn’t take long for him to become the face of the N.B.A. He has mostly embraced that, capitalizing on an era when sports fandom was no longer about sitting down to watch a game so much as it was about catching small bites of the most compelling moments.“People’s interest in athletes moves very quickly, especially with the N.B.A. season,” said Omar Raja, who in 2014 founded House of Highlights, an Instagram account for viral sports moments, because he wanted to share clips of the Miami Heat during James’s time playing there with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.“LeBron’s Instagram stories would do as well as his poster dunks, and you were like, ‘This is crazy,’” Raja said.House of Highlights reposted two videos from James’s Instagram stories in May 2019. One showed James and a former teammate dancing in a yard. Another showed James and friends, including Russell Westbrook, smoking cigars. Both videos outperformed anything that happened in the playoffs.‘I Wish I Could Do Normal Things’James has used his fame to further business opportunities and build his financial portfolio. He has used it to both shield his children and prepare them for growing up in his shadow.He has used it for social activism, most notably in speaking about Black civil rights and racism. That began in 2012, when he and his Heat teammates wore hooded sweatshirts and posted a group photo on social media after the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager who was wearing a hoodie when he was shot and killed in Florida. The Heat decided to transfer some of their spotlight to the national conversation about racism that emerged.James wearing Eric Garner’s words “I Can’t Breathe” at a pregame warm up in 2014. Garner, a Black man, died after the police in New York put him a chokehold.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesBlack N.B.A. players have a long history of speaking out or demonstrating against racism and discrimination: Abdul-Jabbar and the Boston Celtics’ Bill Russell were vocal about the racist dangers they faced in the 1960s and ’70s. But what made the actions of James and his teammates stand out was that the superstar athletes of the ’90s and early 2000s — Michael Jordan, most notably — had often shied away from overt activism.What James chooses to talk about (or not talk about) draws notice.In 2019, when a Houston Rockets executive angered the Chinese government by expressing support for Hong Kong, James was criticized for not speaking out against China’s human rights abuses. James said he did not know enough to talk about them, but some skeptics accused him of avoiding the subject to protect his financial interests in China.And in 2020, when protests swept the country after the police killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both of whom were Black, the N.B.A. made social justice part of its ethos. James used many of his news conferences that season to discuss racism and police violence against Black people.The attention to James’s words separates him from others, as does the attention to his life.“I don’t want to say it ever becomes too much, but there are times when I wish I could do normal things,” James said Thursday while standing in an arena hallway in Indianapolis about an hour after the Lakers beat the Pacers there. A member of a camera crew that has been following him for the past few years filmed him as he spoke.“I wish I could just walk outside,” James said. “I wish I could just, like, walk into a movie theater and sit down and go to the concession stand and get popcorn. I wish I could just go to an amusement park just like regular people. I wish I could go to Target sometimes and walk into Starbucks and have my name on the cup just like regular people.”He added: “I’m not sitting here complaining about it, of course not. But it can be challenging at times.”James grew up without stable housing or much money, but his life now is not like most people’s because of the money he has made through basketball and business (he’s estimated to be worth more than $1 billion), and because of the extraordinary athletic feats he makes look so easy. Once in a while, as when he’s on the phone with his mother, he manages to come off like just another guy.James speaks at the opening ceremony for the I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, in 2018.Phil Long/Associated PressAnother example: In October 2018, during his first Lakers training camp, James gave up wine as part of a preseason diet regimen. He was asked if abstaining had affected his body.“Yeah, it made me want wine more,” James said, relatably. “But I feel great. I feel great. I did a two-week cleanse and gave up a lot of things for 14 days.”James had also quit gluten, dairy, artificial sugars and all alcohol for those two weeks, he said.What was left?“In life?” James said. “Air.”There to See HimThe past few seasons have been challenging for James on the court. He is playing as well as he ever has, but the Lakers have struggled since winning a championship in 2020.They missed the playoffs last season and are in 12th place in the Western Conference, though they have played better recently. James, his coaches and his teammates all insist that he spends more time thinking about how to get the Lakers into the playoffs than about breaking the scoring record.Still, Madison Square Garden, one of his favorite arenas, buzzed on Tuesday night. Because of him.Celebrities, fans and media came to watch him, just as they did when he was a constant in the N.B.A. finals.He taped a pregame interview with Michael Strahan courtside. Then he went through his pregame warm-up, shooting from different spots on the court, working against an assistant coach, who tried to defend him. He took a few seconds to dance near the 3-point line as he waited for someone to pass the ball back to him.He was in what he’s made into a comfortable place: the center of the basketball universe. More

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      Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Was the ‘Best Weapon in Basketball’

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      Everyone knew he was close to surpassing Wilt Chamberlain’s career scoring record in 1984. Opponents still couldn’t stop him.Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still a couple of months from breaking the N.B.A.’s career scoring record, but Mark Eaton of the Utah Jazz had been crunching the numbers, and he was worried — for himself.Eaton had determined that Abdul-Jabbar could eclipse the record when his Los Angeles Lakers faced the Jazz on April 5, 1984 — in Las Vegas, oddly enough — and guess who would probably get the defensive assignment as Abdul-Jabbar chased one of basketball’s greatest feats?“I don’t want to be in that picture!” Eaton told Swen Nater, a friend who was playing for the Lakers that season and who recalled their conversation in a recent interview.For 15 seasons, first with the Milwaukee Bucks and later as the Lakers’ impassive captain, Abdul-Jabbar had been drop-stepping and sky-hooking his way toward history — and no one, not even Eaton, a 7-foot-4 shot-blocking maestro who died in 2021, could prevent any of it from happening.In recent weeks, LeBron James of the Lakers has been on his own inexorable march, thrilling crowds and mowing through defenders as he gets closer to overtaking Abdul-Jabbar’s record, an achievement that once seemed untouchable.For Abdul-Jabbar, 75, the hubbub over his pursuit of Wilt Chamberlain’s scoring record nearly 39 years ago was little more than a distraction in the final weeks of the 1983-84 regular season, teammates said. The Lakers wanted to win another championship.“One thing that he didn’t really like to do was talk about himself,” said Mitch Kupchak, a teammate of his for five seasons before he joined the Lakers’ front office in 1986. “I think he just wanted to get it over with.”There was one player who wanted to talk about the record: Magic Johnson, the team’s All-Star point guard.“I’m making the pass,” Johnson told teammates, according to guard Byron Scott. “I’m throwing it to Cap for him to break the record.”Nater, 73, who was Abdul-Jabbar’s backup, joked that he tried to help out at practice in his own way in the days leading up to the April 5 game.“I basically let him score on me,” Nater said, deadpan. “I’d pat him on the butt and say, ‘Nice shot, Kareem.’ Or tell him to maybe follow through a little more with his wrist on the sky hook. I just wanted to build him up a little.”It was one of 11 home games for the Jazz in Las Vegas that season as the team’s owner sought to build a fan base there. And even though the Jazz were solid — they would advance to the Western Conference semifinals — would-be fans did not exactly flee their slot machines and flock to the Thomas and Mack Center to watch Adrian Dantley, Rickey Green and Darrell Griffith.Abdul-Jabbar used his signature shot, the sky hook, to break Wilt Chamberlain’s career scoring record in 1984.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesTheir game against the Lakers in April drew 18,389 fans — the largest for a Jazz “home” game since the team had relocated from New Orleans before the start of the 1979-80 season. The Jazz had no illusions about their role in the game being such a hot ticket. History was happening.“I don’t think anybody thought that they were going to stop him from scoring,” Dantley said. “No one has ever stopped the best weapon in basketball.”Before the game, the crowd gave Abdul-Jabbar a 45-second standing ovation, according to an account in The New York Times. Abdul-Jabbar, who needed 22 points to break Chamberlain’s record of 31,419 career points, expressed his appreciation by flashing a double thumbs-up, then went about his familiar business of leading the Lakers to another win.He scored 16 points in the first half. But even as the Lakers built a big lead in the third quarter, Abdul-Jabbar resisted forcing shots and consistently passed out of traps. A 12-footer along the baseline gave him 18 points for the game. By the start of the fourth quarter, the game was so out of reach that Frank Layden, the coach of the Jazz, began removing his key players to preserve them for the playoffs.But Abdul-Jabbar was so close to the record that he re-entered the game, and he tied Chamberlain when James Worthy passed to him for a dunk. The next assist needed to belong to Johnson, and when Johnson passed out of trouble to Bob McAdoo, one of the Lakers’ reserves, his teammates shouted at McAdoo to pass it back to Johnson.“Magic almost ran up and grabbed it,” Scott said, laughing at the memory.Bob Hansen, a first-year guard for the Jazz that season, was guarding Johnson and made the unconventional decision to give him a little space to make an entry pass to Abdul-Jabbar on the right block.“Didn’t want to really get in the way of history,” Hansen said.Hansen’s teammates had other ideas. Eaton and Green tried to double-team the 7-2 Abdul-Jabbar, but he took one dribble, pivoted to his right, then spun to his left to rise for a sky hook over Eaton, who had been dreading such a moment. Chick Hearn, the longtime play-by-play announcer for the Lakers, rejoiced when the ball splashed through the hoop.“The new king of scoring has ascended his throne,” Hearn said on the broadcast as Abdul-Jabbar’s teammates embraced him. “This man has accomplished something that I don’t believe — and I mean this sincerely — I don’t think this will ever happen again.”As reporters, photographers and dignitaries swarmed Abdul-Jabbar, Hansen waded through the mass of humanity with the ball in his hands. He found Abdul-Jabbar near midcourt.“I said: ‘Here you go, big fella, here’s the ball. Do you want the ball?’ He was like: ‘Yeah! Thanks, little man,’” said Hansen, who is 6-6. “And he patted me on the head.”Abdul-Jabbar acknowledged the crowd, thanked his teammates and hugged his parents, Cora and Al Alcindor.Abdul-Jabbar, right, talking to David Stern, who was the N.B.A. commissioner, after breaking the record.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty Images“His father, Mr. Alcindor, was very stoic,” Scott said. “He was an ex-cop in New York, so he was tough. It was probably the first time that I saw him give Kareem a hug. You could tell he was very proud, his mother was very proud.”Abdul-Jabbar was subbed out of the game and replaced by Kupchak.“That’s my claim to fame,” said Kupchak, 68, now the general manager and president of basketball operations for the Charlotte Hornets. “Put in the mop sweeper.”Chamberlain did not attend the game, but he came to a ceremony that the Lakers held at home the next day before they played the Kansas City Kings.In Las Vegas, the visiting locker room was so packed with reporters and photographers after Abdul-Jabbar broke the record that Scott tried to escape as quickly as he could.And while the Jazz did not enjoy losing that night, many players are still proud to have played a small role in basketball history, and to have witnessed a record that has stood for decades.“You do kind of appreciate the fact that you’re on the court with a legend,” said Thurl Bailey, a longtime power forward for the Jazz.Bailey has particularly warm feelings for Abdul-Jabbar. Earlier that season, Bailey, who was a rookie, emerged from the locker room at halftime of a game against the Lakers wearing an eye patch after Worthy had inadvertently scratched him. Abdul-Jabbar pulled Bailey aside and showed him his goggles.“Young fella, you need to get you some of these,” Bailey recalled Abdul-Jabbar telling him. “And I tried them and loved them and they worked. He was always nice to me.”When Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1989 after 20 seasons and six championships, his point total was so high — and he was such a singular talent, with the durability to match — that few thought anyone would rival it.But about eight months after Abdul-Jabbar’s record-setting game against the Jazz, something else happened: LeBron James was born. More

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      LeBron James Closes In on Scoring Record With Triple-Double

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      A triple double in an overtime win emphasized that James, who is on the verge of passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career points total, is nowhere near done.Very soon now, LeBron James will have scored more points in the N.B.A. than any player ever.He closed in further on the record on Tuesday night with a team-high 28 points as his Los Angeles Lakers beat the Knicks, 129-123, in overtime.It was James’s first appearance at Madison Square Garden in three years after missing last season’s visit by the Lakers because of a suspension and the game the season before with an injury.James has scored 38,299 points in regular-season play, leaving him 89 points away from surpassing the record held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan round out the top five. The top active player behind James is Kevin Durant in 14th place, lagging by more than 11,000 points.James is averaging 30.2 points a game this season. Should he score 30 at Indiana on Thursday and at New Orleans on Saturday, he would need 29 points on Feb. 7 at home against Oklahoma City to break the record. Failing that, the record would be very likely to fall in his next game on Feb. 9 at home against Milwaukee.Of course, a player as great as James is seldom just a scorer, and he showed that on Tuesday night, by recording a triple double, with 10 rebounds and 11 assists.In addition to his scoring exploits, James moved into fourth on the career assists list. Elsa/Getty ImagesIt was less noticed, but on Tuesday night James also moved into fourth place on the career assists list, behind only the crack passers John Stockton, Jason Kidd and Chris Paul.“That’s what I love to do, get my guys involved, try to put the ball on time and on target with my guys throughout the course of my career,” James said after the game.James also ranks 32nd in rebounds, ninth in steals and ninth in 3-pointers made. He has been selected to six all-defensive teams.And even at age 38, he is clearly nowhere near done. He will surpass the points record soon. But might he go on to obliterate it?Honestly, it is probably up to him. He would still be a valuable player for any team in the league and could be for several more years at least. He may decide to hang up his sneakers at or near the top of his game. But if he chooses to stick around for late-career play a bit below his best, as Jordan did with Washington, for example, he could put the points record far out of sight.Abdul-Jabbar played full time through age 41. His averages for his final four years were 23, 18, 15 and 10 points a game. A similar falloff for James from his average of 30 might have him averaging 25, 22 and 17 the next three years.Because of some injuries over the last three seasons, James has appeared in roughly 70 percent of his team’s games. If that holds, he would average 57 games a season. Using those estimates, he would add more than 3,500 more points to his already formidable total and wind up with perhaps 42,000 points. “I’m going to be in this league at least a few more years,” he said on Tuesday.And those estimates are fairly conservative. His scoring might not fall off as quickly as Abdul-Jabbar’s did. He may be able to play more than 57 games a season. And he may decide to play more than three more years. James could well wind up with a total that will take something superhuman to surpass.Certainly he showed few concessions to age on Tuesday night, whether hitting a 3, driving the lane or making a layup with 20 seconds left in overtime to seal the win. He played a team-high 43 minutes, and ranks ninth this season in the league in minutes per game, hardly the sign of a player slowing down anytime soon.James will be the first to say that winning games matters more than individual statistics. While he has won four titles, most recently in 2020, this season the Lakers are on the outside of the playoffs. While he will be lauded when he does break the record, his primary focus is on turning his team around.Asked how much he thought about the scoring record during games he replied: “Not at all. I didn’t get to this point in my career by thinking about records or how many points I have.”He added: “Maybe when I get super-duper close, maybe it will be at the back of my mind or the front of my mind. But I never put that type of pressure on myself. I just go and play.” More

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      LeBron James Is Reminded in Boston That a Career Is Not All Glory

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      James drew closer to the N.B.A. career scoring record ahead of games in New York, but the Celtics proved again why they have been one of his great adversaries over the past 20 years.BOSTON — LeBron James was warming up for the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night when an old foe wearing shamrock-themed pajama pants strode onto the court to greet him. Paul Pierce, the former Celtics star, embraced James, who got a kick out of Pierce’s outfit.It was a warm moment that lacked any sort of discernible shelf life. A few seconds later, James appeared on the arena’s giant video screens. Several thousand early-arriving fans booed him.With LeBronapalooza revving into high gear as James approaches the N.B.A. career scoring record, his trip to Boston was a reminder of some of the less glamorous stuff — the tight games and controversial calls, the fraught rivalries and hostile crowds — that has filled out his career, shaping him and motivating him. And the Celtics have been right there throughout, providing paint for his canvas.Saturday’s game was another doozy. The Celtics’ 125-121 victory in overtime came after James justifiably felt that he had been fouled on a layup attempt at the end of regulation. A foul call would have sent him to the free throw line with a chance to win it. Instead, the officials missed it. James yelled and protested and fell to his knees. Then he seethed at his locker after another loss by the Lakers (23-27) in a season full of them.“I don’t get it,” he said. “I’m attacking the paint just as much as any of the other guys in this league that’s getting double-digit free throws a night. I don’t get it. I don’t understand it.”The messy end obscured another enormous effort by James, who finished with 41 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists. (He was 5 for 6 from the free throw line.) And it is worth emphasizing: He is regularly posting numbers like those at 38 years old, the third-oldest player in the N.B.A.Ahead of the Lakers’ trip to New York for games against the Nets on Monday and the Knicks on Tuesday, James has now scored 38,271 career points, putting him 117 points away from eclipsing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record.It is a number so large that it defies belief, a number so large that it can be difficult to conceptualize. James has scored against defenders who have long since retired, in arenas that no longer exist.How about this? When James faced the Celtics on Saturday, it had been 19 years 2 months 14 days since his first regular-season game in Boston. That game was on Nov. 14, 2003, back when TD Garden was known as the Fleet Center, when James was an 18-year-old rookie with the Cleveland Cavaliers and nine games into his career. It was also when Jayson Tatum — now the face of the Celtics — was 5.James has been averaging 30 points a game this season. In Boston on Saturday night, he had 41 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesJames struggled in that game, a narrow loss, scoring just 10 points to increase his career total at the time to 146. Vin Baker played 36 minutes that day for the Celtics, while Zydrunas Ilgauskas led the Cavaliers with 22 points. For James, it was an inauspicious opening act ahead of two decades of tussling with the Celtics.By now, each team in the league can cite moments (plural) when James did something to destroy the collective morale of its highly paid employees. A fast-break dunk that sealed a win. A long jumper that clinched a playoff series. A pass, a defensive stop, a blocked shot.The Celtics may be able to cite more of those moments than most teams. Consider that James has won five straight playoff series against them, dating to 2011. But as a much younger player with the Cavaliers, James was stymied by them. The Celtics of the Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen era had savvy and experience, and they bounced the Cavaliers from the playoffs in 2008 and 2010.Their series in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals may have changed the arc of the league. After the Cavaliers were eliminated, James removed his jersey before he reached the visiting locker room.“A friend of mine told me, ‘I guess you’ve got to go through a lot of nightmares before you realize your dream,’” he said at the time. “That’s what’s going on for me individually right now.”James thought he had been fouled by Tatum on the final play in regulation. No foul was called, and the Lakers lost in overtime.Michael Dwyer/Associated PressAbout two months later, James emerged from a luxury vehicle at the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich, Conn., to announce in a televised special that he was joining the Miami Heat as a free agent.The new-look Heat proceeded to eliminate the Celtics from the playoffs in 2011 and again in 2012, after a seven-game scrap in the conference finals. That year, the Celtics were actually home for Game 6 with a chance to clinch the series. Before the game, Doc Rivers, who was then the Celtics’ coach, instructed his players to force James to shoot from the outside. They heeded his message.“The way he was scoring, if you go by a scouting report, was the way we wanted him to score,” Rivers, now the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, said in an interview. “Like, if he had to score, it had to be from the outside. It had to be with the 3-ball. We didn’t feel like he could beat us with that. And he did.”James extended the series by collecting 45 points, 15 rebounds and 5 assists in a lopsided win. He shot 19 of 26 from the field and 2 of 4 from 3-point range.“That,” Rivers said, “was the moment LeBron became a champion.”The Heat went on to win Game 7, and then defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in the N.B.A. finals as James won the first of his four championships.As for roughing up the Celtics, it seemed to become one of James’s favorite pastimes. During his second stint with the Cavaliers, he helped oust the Celtics from the postseason all three times he played them.So perhaps there was some relief in Boston when James decamped for Los Angeles before the start of the 2018-19 season, since it meant the Celtics would see him less often. But it also seemed fitting that he signed with the Lakers, whose rivalry with the Celtics is nearly as old as the league itself.On Saturday, Celtics fans showed up in “Beat L.A.” shirts and jeered every time James touched the ball, which was really just their way of honoring him. The game itself was basketball as theater, same as ever, all the way to the bitter end.Sopan Deb More

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      LeBron James Scoring Tracker: How Close Is He to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Record?

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      The Lakers star is fewer than 200 points away from breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record, which Abdul-Jabbar set before James was born.Since his early days playing basketball, LeBron James has considered himself more of a passer than a scorer. But he has always been dynamic at the rim, and later in his N.B.A. career he developed a shooting touch that made him even more dangerous offensively.Twenty years of perfecting exactly how to attack N.B.A. defenses have brought James to the cusp of a historic achievement that had once seemed almost impossible for anyone to reach.James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, is 178 points away from eclipsing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career total of 38,387. Abdul-Jabbar has been the N.B.A.’s career scoring leader since April 5, 1984 — more than eight months before James was born. Abdul-Jabbar played five more seasons for the Lakers after passing Wilt Chamberlain for that title.As James has approached the record, he has increased his scoring output to 35 points per game in January, up from 28.5 points per game in the season’s first three months. This season and 2021-22 have been two of the highest-scoring of his career. Though it would be difficult, it is possible he could break the record against the Knicks on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, one of his favorite arenas. Four games later, the Lakers will host the Milwaukee Bucks in a game between the two N.B.A. teams for which Abdul-Jabbar played.Lakers ScheduleWednesday vs. San Antonio SpursSaturday @ Boston CelticsMonday @ NetsTuesday @ KnicksFeb. 2 @ Indiana PacersFeb. 4 @ New Orleans PelicansFeb. 7 vs. Oklahoma City ThunderFeb. 9 vs. Milwaukee BucksHere are some of James’s notable performances this season:Jan. 24 vs. Los Angeles Clippers: 46 pointsJames had 46 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists in the Lakers’ loss to the Clippers on Jan. 24. He played 33 minutes and had no turnovers.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe Clippers took a big lead early, and from then on the only facet of the game that seemed to be working for the Lakers was James’s long-range shooting. James made nine 3-pointers, a career high, on 14 attempts.James ended the night with 46 points, making it the first time he’d scored at least 40 points against the Clippers. He is now the first player ever to score at least 40 points in a game against all 30 N.B.A. teams.Despite James’s good night, the Lakers lost, 133-115, leaving James dejected as he sat on the bench at the end of the game.Jan. 16 vs. Houston Rockets: 48 pointsJames had 48 points, 8 rebounds and 9 assists against Houston on Jan. 16. Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Lakers had just come off close losses to the Dallas Mavericks and Philadelphia 76ers and were on a three-game losing streak. James has produced several impressive performances in losses this season, but he enjoys it more when the team wins. This game was his highest scoring this season, and came on the second night of a back-to-back.He also got a reminder of his age when the Houston rookie Jabari Smith Jr. told him during the game that his father had played against him in James’s first N.B.A. game in 2003. At 38, James is one of the oldest players in the league.“I could have very easily took tonight off, but I don’t feel like the momentum of our ball club could use me taking a night off tonight,” James said after the game. “I don’t feel like I wanted to sit on that loss to Philly last night. I kind of wanted to get that out of my taste buds.”Dec. 2 at Milwaukee Bucks: 28 pointsJames had 28 points, 8 rebounds and 11 assists in the Lakers’ win. He has improved as 3-point shooter in his career and hit 3 of 6 against the Bucks.Michael Mcloone/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThis wasn’t one of James’s highest-scoring games, but it was one that showed the Lakers’ potential when they’re at full strength. Anthony Davis was healthy and scored 44 points as the Lakers beat one of the Eastern Conference’s best teams on the road.James’s 11 assists allowed him to pass Magic Johnson for the sixth-most career assists in N.B.A. history. It was also his 900th career win. More

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      This Isn’t Who the Lakers Are Supposed to Be. Right?

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      The Lakers have long been seen as a glamour franchise of big names and big wins. LeBron James is dominating. But the wins have been much harder to come by, for a while.LOS ANGELES — LeBron James fidgeted as he answered questions after a second consecutive frustrating Lakers loss in which he thought the referees had missed a potential game-altering foul call.He was terse and dismissed a question about scoring his 38,000th career point in the N.B.A., something only he and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have done. He was asked if he thought much about what the Lakers’ many losses in recent seasons meant to the franchise.“No,” James said. Then he turned and sped out of the locker room, into a rainy Los Angeles night.The gloom outside reflected the mood in the building.For decades, the Lakers defined themselves as one of the N.B.A.’s glamour franchises — a place the biggest stars went to play, win championships and achieve basketball immortality. Making the playoffs was an expectation, not an accomplishment.Then 10 years ago, two seismic events shook the franchise. On Feb. 18, 2013, Jerry Buss, who bought and revitalized the Lakers in 1979, died at age 80, leaving the franchise to a trust controlled by his six children, some of whom would wrestle for control of the team. Less than two months later, as he tried to drag the Lakers into the playoffs, Kobe Bryant tore an Achilles’ tendon, the first in a string of injuries that would spell the end of his 20-year career.Since then, the Lakers have gone through several discordant phases, from Bryant’s return and retirement to chaos in the executive ranks to a championship in 2020 that seemed proof of purple-and-gold exceptionalism, no matter the obstacles.But new obstacles have the Lakers once again facing the question of whether the excellence they spent decades building can return. For the second year in a row, James, 38, is having to produce herculean efforts to try to pull his injury-plagued team out of the bottom of the Western Conference standings.LeBron James is averaging nearly 30 points a game at the age of 38 as he tries to power the injured and struggling Lakers to the playoffs.Jae C. Hong/Associated Press“We’re going to figure this thing out,” said Lakers Coach Darvin Ham, the team’s fifth in the past 10 years. “We’ll definitely figure this thing out.”‘Kobe realized that he could not win’If success is measured by championships, the Lakers have still been one of the top teams in the N.B.A. during the past decade. They are one of the six teams to have won championships since the 2012-13 season.Broadening the measure to playoff or regular-season success, the Lakers become less impressive. With only two playoff appearances since the 2012-13 season, the Lakers are in the bottom third of the league. Only two teams have been to the playoffs fewer times in that span — the Knicks (once) and the Sacramento Kings (none).By contrast, between 1960-61, the team’s first season in Los Angeles after moving from Minnesota, and 2012-13, the Lakers had missed the playoffs just four times.Frank Vogel coached the Lakers to their only two recent playoff appearances, guiding them to the championship in 2020 then a first-round loss in 2021. The Lakers fired him in April after they missed the playoffs.Even though injuries and roster construction played major roles in the Lakers’ struggles in the 2021-22 season, Vogel became a casualty of heightened expectations with James on board. James’s arrival as a free agent in July 2018 marked the first time since Bryant retired two years earlier that the Lakers had a transcendent star.Bryant had spent his whole career with the Lakers and won five championships. So even after his Achilles’ tendon injury, the Lakers rewarded him with a two-year contract extension worth $48.5 million, giving him the highest salary in the league at the time. They were confident that he deserved it no matter what happened next.To announce Bryant’s return from injury in late 2013, the Lakers created a video with dramatic music and an image of his jersey being battered by weather until a lightning bolt finally tore it. The video closes with the jersey having been mended by unseen means and with the words: “The Legend Continues.”Bryant returned for six games in December, then fractured his knee and missed the rest of the 2013-14 season as the Lakers won just 27 games. He missed most of the next season as the team won only 21 games.“At some point, I think it’s obvious to everyone that Kobe realized that he could not win,” said Gary Vitti, who was the Lakers’ head athletic trainer for decades until Bryant retired. “And once he realized he couldn’t win, then a lot of the stress and the pressure sort of came off him and he really started having fun and being a lot happier around the game and his teammates.”Kobe Bryant, who died in 2020, spent his entire 20-year career with the Lakers, though the final few seasons were rough. He scored 60 points in his final game in April 2016.Harry How/Getty ImagesOpposing fans feted him everywhere he went. They cheered the first shot he made, even if it took him a while to get there. Coach Byron Scott, a former Lakers guard, led the team during Bryant’s loss-filled farewell tour, a franchise-low 17-win season.“Losing — it’s horrible,” Vitti said. “But if you put it all in the context, if you’re Kobe, you know, basically Kobe could do whatever he wanted out there. Byron took over and kind of fell on his sword for the team. He said, let’s send Kobe out the way he wants to go.”Said Metta Sandiford-Artest, who played for the Lakers on their 2010 championship team and again from 2015-17: “At that point, you just wanted to make it comfortable for Kobe. That’s it. Nothing else really matters at that point.” He added: “He deserved it.”‘Pieces for the future’All the losing gave the Lakers enviable draft positioning.With picks earned by their records in the final few years of Bryant’s career, the Lakers drafted or acquired several promising young players, like Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson, D’Angelo Russell, Larry Nance Jr., Brandon Ingram and Ivica Zubac.Randle, Clarkson, Russell and Nance have said they learned from Bryant’s example. But his star power was such that they had to wait until he retired in April 2016 for the franchise to focus on their development.“It felt like a career-beginning training camp because it definitely was not the pieces at the time you needed to win,” Sandiford-Artest said. “There was more, you know, pieces for the future.”Those players would not be part of their future, except as trade chips to build the championship roster.In the gap between Bryant and James, Jeanie Buss, the controlling owner, overhauled the front office and thwarted a coup attempt by her older brothers as the team’s losses — and external criticism — mounted.In the summer of 2017, the Lakers signed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who is represented by James’s agent and close friend, Rich Paul. That gave Paul an inside look at the organization a year before James became a free agent.Paul knew the situation wasn’t perfect, but few teams are. He advised James that signing with the Lakers could work, in part out of trust in Buss. James chose the Lakers and suddenly the drama of the past few seasons didn’t seem to matter.After missing the playoffs in James’s first season, when he dealt with a groin injury, the Lakers tried again. Magic Johnson, whom Buss had hired to run basketball operations and who had helped to recruit James, abruptly stepped down before the last game of the 2018-19 season. They traded several young players and draft picks to the New Orleans Pelicans for another Paul client: Anthony Davis. Rob Pelinka, the team’s vice president of basketball operations, said he consulted with James and Davis as he built the rest of the roster.The two stars were electrifying together. The rest of the team fit perfectly and charged through the coronavirus pandemic-interrupted season. When Bryant died suddenly in a helicopter crash in January 2020, James became the public face of the organization’s grief.Months later, James led the Lakers to the franchise’s 17th championship. Buss felt vindicated against those who had questioned her leadership.Jeanie Buss, the Lakers’ controlling owner, has faced criticism as the team has struggled. She oversaw the franchise’s 17th championship run, in 2020.Tracy Nguyen for The New York TimesOnstage as the team celebrated the victory, James enveloped Buss in a long embrace. He told her they had accomplished what they set out to do.“I think the hug for that long a time was to really let it soak in,” Buss told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “He’s won several championships now, and he knows that those moments are to be cherished and to be recognized.”But it was only one championship. They would soon tumble from their pedestal.‘Things are going to get right’This season is Ham’s first season with the Lakers, and it began disastrously.The team lost its first five games, and 10 of its first 12. Ham benched Russell Westbrook in October after three starts. Westbrook had struggled in his first season in Los Angeles last year.James has been a bright spot. In his 20th season, he has been playing like he is still in his 20s. He’s had trouble enjoying the chase for Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record as losses and injuries have piled up this season.Ham has remained optimistic.“I get disappointed, but I don’t get discouraged or down on myself or the team,” he said in an interview. “Yeah, there’s moments in games we should have won, or different moments we should have played better, but at the end of the day working in the N.B.A. for one of the most, if not the most storied franchise, having a lot of great people I get to work with, great people I’m working for. It’s been fun.”The Lakers lack depth, but there is evidence lately that, with the right additions, they can contend for a championship if they have Davis, who had been playing like a candidate for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award before his foot injury in mid-December. The Lakers went on a five-game winning streak starting Dec. 30 and recently they nearly beat two contenders — the Mavericks and the 76ers.Lakers guard Russell Westbrook, left, has had a rocky tenure in Los Angeles, but has found success coming off the bench this year. Coach Darvin Ham, right, pulled Westbrook from the starting lineup after three games.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe trading deadline is Feb. 9, giving the Lakers until then to make a major move to get back on the championship track. But all of the trades of the last few years, particularly those for Davis and Westbrook, have left them with little flexibility and salary-cap space. They can’t trade any of their first-round picks until the 2027 selection, and have been reluctant to lose more draft assets.Ham said he has felt support from Pelinka and Buss, who signed Pelinka to a multiyear extension last year despite the team’s struggles. After a five-game road trip from Christmas to Jan. 2, Ham and Pelinka went to Buss’s office.“She gave me a big hug and told me: ‘Hang in there, you’re doing a phenomenal job and things are going to get right. We’re going to start winning consistently, but Darvin, we’re totally happy with what you’re doing and you and your staff are doing an excellent job,’” Ham said. “It was cool. It was really thoughtful.”Ham said the mood when he sees both Buss and Pelinka is light and full of smiles.“It’s not like a lack of an awareness, but just a gratefulness, a thankfulness to be in this together,” Ham said.He is being afforded patience, at least for now. More

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      Measuring Up to Wilt Chamberlain May Take More Than Stats

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      Several N.B.A. players have had Chamberlain-like performances this season. But to some, he will always be untouchable.From a courtside folding chair at Fiserv Forum, where Dick Garrett has assisted fans as a Milwaukee Bucks employee for more than two decades, he recently watched Giannis Antetokounmpo toy with the Washington Wizards, levitating above the rim as if he were frolicking in a slam-dunk contest.“Fifty-five points and he was doing it so easily, like no one could even challenge him,” Garrett said. “I’m thinking, ‘Geez, he’s a man playing against boys.’ ”Not unlike what he witnessed, but with an even better view, more than a half-century ago.Such physical dominance took Garrett back to his rookie N.B.A. season, 1969-70, with the Los Angeles Lakers. In a postseason run to a Game 7 finals loss to the Knicks, he lobbed passes into the post from his backcourt position to the man best known as Wilt, in that familiar one-name tribute to fame.This season, Antetokounmpo, among others, has been drawing enough statistical comparisons to Wilt Chamberlain — who scored a record 100 points in a game and averaged a mind-boggling 50 per game for a season — to wonder if the sport has ascended to its most exceptional athletic plane.Or, if its video-game mimicry is as much or more the result of competitive engineering.Take a significantly expanded area of attack due to rampant 3-point shooting; open up driving lanes to the physically blessed and skilled likes of Antetokounmpo to score or find open teammates on the perimeter. What you get is an array of eye-opening individual stat lines in a league where team scoring has soared by roughly 15 points from where it was a decade ago.On Dec. 30, Garrett watched Antetokounmpo manhandle the Minnesota Timberwolves for 43 points and 20 rebounds, two nights after notching 45 points and 22 rebounds against the Bulls in Chicago. Antetokounmpo’s seven assists in Chicago and five against Minnesota made him the first player to record at least 40 points, 20 rebounds and 5 assists in consecutive games since, well, Wilt.Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of several players who have put up Wilt-like stat lines this season.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesAntetokounmpo, with his seven-foot frame and elastic wingspan that can optically delude one into thinking he scratches the ceiling, is indeed what Garrett called the ringleader of a “big man revolution.”It hasn’t just been the tallest of the league’s elite — Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic in Denver, Joel Embiid in Philadelphia — whose statistical bingeing has reintroduced Chamberlain, who died in 1999, into the N.B.A. discourse.When Luka Doncic, Dallas’s 6-foot-7 do-everything Slovenian import, strafed the Knicks for 60 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists in a comeback overtime victory late last month, commentators breathlessly noted that no one, not even Wilt, had ever posted such a line.Walt Frazier, the Hall of Fame guard who broadcasts Knicks games and once shared a backcourt with Garrett at Southern Illinois, has an idea why.“What you mostly see now are guys running up and down, dunking on people,” he said in a telephone interview. “Only a few teams buckle down on defense. They don’t double-team when someone goes off. When someone came in and dropped 40 on me, it was always, ‘Clyde got destroyed.’ Now Doncic scores 60 and no one even says who was guarding him.”Frazier, 77, was echoing recent laments on the state of the sport from the old-school coaches Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr. It’s no surprise that appreciation, or lack thereof, for the contemporary N.B.A. would break down along generational lines. For those who played with or against Chamberlain, he is basketball’s Babe Ruth, the game’s all-time goliath. Everyone has a tale, perhaps on the tall side, to tell.Billy Cunningham, 79, a Hall of Famer and Chamberlain’s teammate with the Philadelphia 76ers, cited the night Gus Johnson, a very strong forward for the Baltimore Bullets, went at Wilt with every intention of dunking over him as he’d done earlier in the game.Chamberlain didn’t just block the shot, Cunningham said: “He actually caught the ball, and while Gus went to the floor, he just stood there holding it over his head.”However grainy the video, however dorky the short shorts, do not try to convince Cunningham and company that what Chamberlain achieved was the result of an ancient, inferior era. They will remind you that he averaged 45.8 minutes per game for his career and seldom sat one out, in stark contrast to the more coddled modern star — who, in fairness, represents a far greater financial investment to protect.But when a knee injury limited Chamberlain to 12 regular-season games in 1969-70, he returned for all 18 playoff games to average 22.1 points, 22.2 rebounds and 47.3 minutes per game. And this, Garrett reminded, was Chamberlain at 33, several years removed from when he could run like the track-and-field star he had been at the University of Kansas — as freakish an athlete as the Greek version, Antetokounmpo.Chamberlain and the Lakers lost to the Knicks in the N.B.A. finals in 1970 but beat them two years later, giving Chamberlain his second championship.Walter Iooss Jr./Sports Illustrated, via Getty ImagesIt is foolish to think that professional athletes aren’t physically enhanced from a half-century ago, if only for their weight training and nutrition. As Garrett said: “You look at the size of Giannis — who’s not as strong as Wilt or even Shaquille O’Neal. But he and a few of these other big guys, they’re athletic enough to play like smaller guys, and that’s what’s changed.”Having played with Elgin Baylor on the Lakers, and watched from up close the modern-day smaller and midsize players, Garrett said: “I honestly think the wing players and guards are pretty similar in what they do.”But, he added, in comparison with Wilt’s time: “The way Giannis and some others are scoring, the level of resistance is not the same. I don’t know if that’s for the better or not.”Now the league eagerly awaits the arrival of the latest in a parade of big men from abroad who have, along with the likes of Kevin Durant, dramatically altered positional perception. France’s Victor Wembanyama may be the next greatest thing or at least Kristaps Porzingis 2.0. But for every progression in size, skills and worldwide production of talent, the old guard will judiciously argue that their game was fundamentally sounder, tactically superior, defensively stouter.They will remind you that when Wilt averaged 50.4 points per game for the Philadelphia Warriors in 1961-62, team scoring was at 118.8 points per game — or five points per game higher than this season. And that was when there was hand-checking, hard fouls and other generous interpretations of traveling rules.Wilt established four of the top five season-scoring averages while clanking half his free throws and, as Cunningham noted, “when there were only eight or nine teams and he had to play against Bill Russell 10 times a year.”Conversely, in Wilt’s time, the flow of African American talent into the N.B.A. was limited by a de facto quota system, which no doubt affected the league’s overall quality.Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics posts up against Chamberlain during a game in 1968.Dick Raphael/NBAE, via Getty ImagesCunningham conceded that comparisons are, beyond futile, “almost unfair because everything is so different. The game in all sports now is about entertainment.”The bottom line: The more cash that pours into sports, the more tinkering there will be to satisfy contemporary highlight tastes, especially those of younger fans who drive internet clicks, fantasy leagues, merchandise sales and the newest revenue deity: online gambling. In a league where regular-season relevance has been dampened by injuries and load-management caution, and further diluted by recent postseason expansion, why so many games have taken on the eye candy nature of all-star games is no great mystery, just calculated marketing.For Frazier, who quarterbacked the acclaimed 1970 and 1973 championship Knicks, the playoffs are when the bridge between old and new is rebuilt. “That’s when the continuity and defense that we older guys love does return,” he said.Only then, perhaps, can we gain a meaningful perspective on the historical numbers game currently in play, and on how to more accurately measure the young wannabes against Wilt. More

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      NBA Christmas Day Games 2022: What to Know

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      The N.B.A. brings out its stars on Christmas. This year, there will be some new rivalries, too.The N.B.A. showcases its stars on Christmas Day, and this year there will be some big names to watch, like LeBron James, Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid.There will also be a new face in the mix (Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant is playing on the holiday for the first time) and a familiar one missing (Golden State’s Stephen Curry is out injured).In each of the five games, there is something to look forward to, from young players trying to make their mark to older foes avenging playoff losses.Here’s what you need to know.All times are Eastern, and all games will air on ABC and ESPN. The statistics were current entering Friday night’s games.Philadelphia 76ers at Knicks, noonJames Harden missed several games for the Sixers with an injury, but he’s back and helping them stack up wins.Matt Slocum/Associated PressAfter rocky starts, these teams are finally clicking. The Knicks surged up the Eastern Conference standings on the strength of a recent winning streak, while Philadelphia was compiling a streak of its own.They met on Nov. 4, with the Knicks winning, but Philadelphia didn’t have its two best players: center Joel Embiid and guard James Harden. That makes Sunday’s game the teams’ first true matchup. The Knicks have played on Christmas more often than any other team, but this is the first time they will have Jalen Brunson, their big free-agent signing of the off-season.Brunson, a guard who spent his first four seasons in Dallas, leads the Knicks in assists and is the team’s second-best scorer, behind forward Julius Randle. For the first quarter of the season, the Knicks struggled to string together wins. But then December hit, and they found their stride.That’s when fortunes improved for the Sixers, too. Harden had missed more than a dozen games with a foot injury but returned this month to produce several impressive games with double-digit assist totals. The Knicks will, of course, have to watch out for Embiid as well. Last month, in a game against the Utah Jazz, he had this wild stat line: 59 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists and 7 blocks.Los Angeles Lakers at Dallas Mavericks, 2:30 p.m.Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic is in his fifth N.B.A. season but has already been named to the All-Star team three times.Emil Lippe/Associated PressFans can seemingly always count on seeing the Lakers on Christmas — this is the 24th year in a row — but nothing else about the team has been that consistent.Even as LeBron James, who will turn 38 on Friday, continues to defy reason with his youthful play, minor injuries keep tugging him to the bench. Then there’s the major injury to center Anthony Davis, who is out indefinitely with a sore right foot. Other ailments have rippled through the roster, and the Lakers’ sub-.500 record reflects that. But it also reflects an aging team that got off to a terrible start (0-5) and hasn’t settled into a high-performing rhythm since then.All of that is to say: The Lakers have been a little bit all over the place.Dallas has been, too. Luka Doncic is playing and scoring more than last season, but the Mavericks are losing to bad teams right after beating good ones. The Lakers could fall into either category on Sunday. At the very least, it should be a fun game, with Doncic and James battling to see who can put on the best show. They are both capable of making even the earliest risers hold off on a midday nap.Milwaukee Bucks at Boston Celtics, 5 p.m.Jayson Tatum led the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals last season and has followed that up with high-scoring play this season.David Butler II/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBoston’s Jayson Tatum has responded to his disappointing appearance in the N.B.A. finals last season in the best way: by playing better than ever before. He’s leading the league in minutes per game (37.2), and he’s putting them to good use, averaging a career-best 30.6 points per game by making about half of his shots.The Celtics will face a Bucks team with a not-so-shabby star of its own in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Last season ended in playoff disappointment for him, too, with Milwaukee falling to Boston in seven games in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Sunday will be his first chance for a little revenge.The Bucks and the Celtics are jockeying for first place in the East, though they are fighting with different strengths. Boston has the league’s second-best offense, while Milwaukee has the third-best defense. The postseason is still a ways off, but it would be a surprise not to see one of these teams in the N.B.A. finals. Their Christmas matchup should help each team see what it needs to work on to make sure it’s the one playing for a title.Memphis Grizzlies at Golden State, 8 p.m.Ja Morant has made the Grizzlies one of the most exciting teams to watch in recent years. Brandon Dill/Associated PressNo one can argue that the Grizzlies haven’t earned this, their Christmas debut.Point guard Ja Morant is the speedy, soaring, confident heart of the team, but Memphis is more than its brightest star — and Morant would be the first to say so. He’s averaging a career-best 7.8 assists per game as he and his teammates keep the Grizzlies near the top of a tightly contested Western Conference.They finished last season as the No. 2 seed in the West and could have made a run to the conference finals if Golden State (and injuries) hadn’t gotten in their way in the second round. Sunday will be the teams’ first meeting since then.Both teams have dealt with their share of injuries this season, but Golden State has an especially big one: Stephen Curry has been out since he hurt his shoulder against Indiana on Dec. 14, and it’s not clear when he will return.Golden State is currently ranked in the bottom half of the West, but the intensity of last season’s playoff series with Memphis should carry over and make Sunday’s game a good contest nonetheless.Phoenix Suns at Denver Nuggets, 10:30 p.m.Denver’s Nikola Jokic won the Most Valuable Player Award the past two seasons.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesThe last game on a long day of basketball is easy to overlook. But Denver’s Nikola Jokic is sure to make at least one pass that will make staying up late worth it. That’s kind of his thing: One minute he has the ball, and then the next his teammate on the other side of the court does, and no one is quite sure how it happened. The Suns are a top-10 defensive team, but some things just can’t be stopped.Phoenix is also the league’s best on offense, which could be a challenge for the Nuggets, who are among the N.B.A.’s worst on defense. Suns guard Chris Paul is one of the best ever at getting the ball to his teammates. Paul led the league in assists last season, his fifth time doing so, and is averaging about nine per game this season.If this game’s late start isn’t a deal-breaker, it should be a nice chance to see some excellent passing and skilled shooters making good on the assist. More