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      Like a Record, LeBron James’s Age Is Just a High Number

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      Still among the best players in the N.B.A. at 38, James is now 36 points away from the league’s career scoring record. He could break it at home on Tuesday.NEW ORLEANS — LeBron James headed into Saturday night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans needing 63 points to break the N.B.A. career scoring record. It was a large number for anyone to reach in a single game, especially a 38-year-old in his 20th N.B.A. season.And yet spectators wearing purple-and-gold jerseys and T-shirts displaying James’s No. 6 flooded Canal and Bourbon Streets ahead of Saturday’s game, and then they piled into the Smoothie King Center, most of them hoping to witness N.B.A. history.Larry Unrein, a New York native who traveled to three of the Lakers’ last four games, came to New Orleans a day after his 40th birthday, hoping for a belated gift.“He could break it, dude,” Unrein said before the game. “He’s 38, and he’s playing like he’s 24. I turned 40 yesterday and aspire to take care of my body, drink tons of water and stretch.” Unrein, who skateboards in his free time, said James was inspiring him to skate into old age.An employee at the arena named Anita, who would not give her last name but said she had been working there for 10 years, was nervous that the record might be broken on the Pelicans’ home floor. “We can’t let him do it here,” she said. “It ain’t about the King tonight.”No one, really, should have thought that James, at this point in his career, would score 63 points on Saturday. (His career high is 61 points, in a game against Charlotte in 2014.) But James has provided many miracles in his career. That he is competing at such a high level at 38 seems to be just one more — a feat that is altering perceptions of athletic limits and athletic primes.James fell short of the scoring record on Saturday, finishing with 27 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists, and the Lakers (25-29) lost to the Pelicans (27-27), 131-126. James is now 36 points away from passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who scored 38,387 points from 1969 to 1989, and tickets for the Lakers’ home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night have soared in anticipation that James will break the record then.On Saturday, James made plays that explained why many supporters will always believe that another miracle is on its way. He played 40 minutes, more than any of his teammates. It was the third time in his last four games that he played at least 40 minutes, a figure, he said, that was “catching up to him.”“I’m tired as hell,” he said after the game. “But I’ll be ready to go on Tuesday.”“I think it’s historic on a lot of different levels,” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said earlier this season. “For him to be at this point of his career and still able to produce at the level in which he’s producing, I just think all of us, just really being able to witness it, be a part of it — it shows his competitive spirit, his no-quit mentality.”A moment of “How is LeBron doing this at this age?” came in the third quarter, with the Lakers leading by 7 and forward Herbert Jones barreling toward the rim. James took a charge, flying onto his back from the impact of Jones’s crashing into him. Many N.B.A. players, especially stars and older players, are reluctant to take a charge, given the risk of injury or, more simply, the wear and tear on the body over a long season. Even Kobe Bryant, who was known for his toughness and mentality when he played for the Lakers, was publicly against taking charges.Bryant’s reasoning was that great players such as Scottie Pippen and Larry Bird were injured after taking many charges throughout their careers, while others, including Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, didn’t take charges and avoided significant long-term injuries.But there was James, nearly 40, taking a charge on a player listed at 6 feet 7 inches and 206 pounds.James plunged into the crowd after diving for a loose ball.Emily Kask for The New York TimesWith just under three minutes remaining in Saturday’s game and the Lakers losing by 4, James dived for a ball heading out of bounds, launching himself above courtside fans. It was the second time he had done so in recent weeks. He did not save the ball, but players of his age and status would be excused for not even making the effort. James would not excuse himself: There he was, his blue-and-pink shoes among the fans’ faces in the crowd.“I think it inspires them out there to do their jobs,” Ham said this season about the impact of James’s play on his teammates.James aggressively attacked the basket throughout the night, bumping and fighting through fouls to make layups and sprinting past players for scores. On multiple occasions, younger teammates passed up layup opportunities to give the ball to their much older, but somehow much more explosive, teammate, who threw down dunks that ignited fans, many who wore his jersey and some who wore New Orleans colors.James was not perfect. He often settled for 3-point shots, including an off-balance one late in the game, which he missed and seemed foolish to take. He finished 1 for 7 from long range. Defensively, he, like his teammates, did little to stop the Pelicans’ 42-point barrage in the third quarter, which sparked their win.As James went to the free-throw line with 18 seconds left and the Lakers losing by 6, he missed his first attempt. If the game wasn’t over already, it was effectively over after that.But Anita, the stadium worker, wasn’t buying it. She thought James was too good to miss a free throw. This had to be part of a script: “He’s just doing that,” she said, “so he could get that record in L.A.” More

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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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      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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      Luka Doncic Is Scoring More and Playing When He Doesn’t Have To

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      Even in pickup games, Doncic is showing a leap compared with last season, which ended with a disappointing exit in the Western Conference finals.LOS ANGELES — Jared Dudley, an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks, put together a pickup game earlier this month when his team had an official day off.He invited players who usually don’t see much time on the floor, including Jaden Hardy, Theo Pinson and Frank Ntilikina, as well as A.J. Lawson, who had been on the team for less than a month. The goal was to get them a few extra minutes to play, and to let Dudley and other coaches help them build up the informal dynamics of working together.As Dudley organized the game, Luka Doncic noticed. “I want to play,” he said.Dudley was stunned because, in his experience, star players rarely add on to their workload in this way.He wondered if it was a good idea because Doncic had played 43 minutes (and scored 43 points) the previous night in a loss to the Clippers. But the team’s medical staff approved, so he let Doncic play.“Just loves to hoop,” Dudley said.Doncic’s passion has shown in the games that count, too.It had been clear since Doncic was drafted into the N.B.A. in 2018 that he was a special player. But five seasons in, he seems to have taken a superstar leap. Entering Friday, Doncic led the league with 33.7 points per game and was fifth in assists per game with 8.8. By his own evaluation, he came into the season more prepared than he has in seasons past, perhaps motivated by losing to Golden State in the Western Conference finals last season.“Until you win the championship, I think it always has to push you,” Doncic said. “And it will for me for sure.”On Jan. 11, when Doncic insisted on playing in the unnecessary pickup game in Los Angeles, he was in the midst of an astounding stretch of basketball.The next day he scored 35 points against the Lakers, which put his average over a 10-game stretch to 40.2 points. During that span, he scored 60 points against the Knicks, put up 51 against the San Antonio Spurs and had 50 against the Houston Rockets.Doncic scored 51 against the Spurs in a Dec. 31 game.Ronald Cortes/Getty ImagesAgainst the Knicks, Doncic also had 21 rebounds and 10 assists, making him the first player in N.B.A. history to have 60 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in a game.“The history of the game is written by the players, and it was written again tonight,” Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd said after the Knicks game. “For a player, Luka, doing something that’s never been done before, it’s hard to do.”Kidd added: “Elgin Baylor, Wilt, he was in that class, and then he separated himself and made his own class.”The Mavericks needed every bit of his performance. They won that game by only 5 points in overtime. Doncic scored 18 in the fourth quarter, adding 7 in overtime, which outscored the Knicks entirely.“This kid doesn’t quit,” Kidd said.Doncic passed 50 points in a game for the first time last season, when he had a 51-point effort against the Clippers in February.This season, the Mavericks need him to score more. They lost the reliable scorer Jalen Brunson in free agency when he signed with the Knicks, and have had to weather injuries to other key players.Doncic also spent the summer playing with the Slovenian national team, then returned to Dallas prepared to take a big step.“I was way more ready than last year at the start, so that was really the most important thing,” Doncic said.Dudley saw that in numerous ways. Doncic was in better shape. He was more aggressive in early games. He leads the league in first-quarter scoring, averaging 11.4 points during that period.“He plays the whole first quarter now because we can play him at a higher rate,” Dudley said. “We believe defensively he can keep up with that. And shooting at such a high percentage. I think as confidence grows, he knows what he is as a player, he knows no one can stop him.”Dudley, who played the final stretch of his N.B.A. career with LeBron James on the Lakers, sometimes uses James as an example for Doncic. He knows Doncic will respect learning about James, because he was one of Doncic’s favorite players growing up. James and Doncic traded jerseys during Doncic’s rookie year, and Doncic has that jersey hanging in his house in Dallas.The maturity he shows in his play makes it sometimes jarring in moments when that lapses.“He’s way wiser than his age; he acts like he’s been here before,” Mavericks forward Dorian Finney-Smith, 29, said. “But, you know, sometimes you forget he’s only 23 years old. You forget until he does something crazy like kick the ball all the way up into the stands. Then you’re like, OK, all right. He’s 23.”Doncic and Dorian Finney-Smith have bonded over pickup games.LM Otero/Associated PressTo be fair, Doncic hasn’t been fined for kicking the ball into the stands since 2019. But he does have a quick temper on the court. He has been assessed 10 technical fouls this season, though one was rescinded.“Off the court, I’m not an angry person,” Doncic said with a smile.Finney-Smith has seen that up close.They became friends even though they came from very different places and started their N.B.A. careers in very different ways. Finney-Smith grew up in Portsmouth, Va., and joined the Mavericks as an undrafted free agent in 2016. Two years later, the Mavericks drafted Doncic, who had played professional basketball in Europe since he was 16, with the No. 3 overall pick.That off-season, Finney-Smith and Doncic spent a lot of time together and bonded over pickup games.“We worked out with each other a whole week straight, even on the weekends, and played ones all night, all day,” Finney-Smith said. “Played full court one-on-one.”Then, as now, Doncic just loved to hoop. More

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      Chris Ford, Who Made a 3-Point Mark in the N.B.A., Dies at 74

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      He helped the Celtics win a title and coached them in the ’90s, but he may be remembered more for sinking what was hailed as the league’s first 3-point shot. Or was it?Chris Ford, who played guard for the Boston Celtics when they won the 1981 N.B.A. championship and later coached the team along with two others in the N.B.A., but who was perhaps best remembered for making the first 3-point shot in the league’s history, died on Tuesday. He was 74.Ford’s family announced his death through the Celtics but did not provide details. The Press of Atlantic City reported that he died in Philadelphia after having a heart attack this month.The N.B.A. instituted the 3-pointer in its 1979-80 season, borrowing the idea from the former American Basketball Association, which had merged with the N.B.A. in 1976. On Oct. 12, 1979, the opening night of the season, Ford was behind the arc when he caught a pass from guard Tiny Archibald and shot the basketball over the outstretched hand of the Houston Rockets’ Robert Reid with 3 minutes 48 seconds left in the first quarter.But Kevin Grevey of the Washington Bullets also hit a 3-point shot that night, in another early-evening game, against the Philadelphia 76ers. After that game, a reporter told Grevey that he had “just set a record that would never be broken,” according to an account by The New York Times in 2021.Three nights after those season-openers, the N.B.A. issued a news release saying that Ford was, in fact, the 3-point pioneer, since the Celtics-Rockets game had started 35 minutes before the Bullets-Sixers matchup. Still, it was unclear at what exact time of the evening each 3-point basket was made.The three-pointer went on to become perhaps the most dominant offensive weapon used in the N.B.A.Ford joined the Celtics early in the 1978-79 season in a trade with the Detroit Pistons. He played with Boston through the 1981-82 season. After serving as an assistant coach with the Celtics, he was the team’s head coach for five seasons in the 1990s. He later coached the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Clippers.Ford during a game in 1994. He coached several N.B.A. teams, including the Boston Celtics, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Clippers.Gary Stewart/Associated PressChristopher Joseph Ford was born on Jan. 11, 1949, in Atlantic City, N.J. He helped take Villanova to three N.C.A.A. tournament appearances, including a trip to the 1971 national championship game, where the Wildcats lost to U.C.L.A., coached by John Wooden.At 6 feet 5 inches, Ford was tall for a guard of his era. He averaged 15.8 points a game during his collegiate career and was selected by the Detroit Pistons in the second round of the 1972 N.B.A. draft.In his first season with the Celtics, Ford averaged what became a career-high 15.6 points a game and was voted the team’s most valuable player. He averaged 9.2 points a game with 3.4 assists for his N.B.A. career. He was an assistant coach for the Celtics for seven seasons under their former guard K.C. Jones, and then succeeded Jimmy Rodgers as the team’s head coach. Ford held the post from the 1990-91 season to 1994-95 season. He compiled a 222-188 record with four playoff appearances.He was the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks from 1996 to 1998, and of the Los Angeles Clippers from 1998 to 2000. He began the 2003-4 season as an assistant coach for the 76ers and coached the final 30 games of that season after Coach Randy Ayers had been fired.According to The Boston Globe, Ford is survived by his wife, Kathy; their children, Chris Jr., Katie, Anthony and Michael; and seven grandchildren.Kevin Grevey said he did not revisit the possibility that it was he, not Ford, who had made the N.B.A.’s first 3-pointer until more than a decade after those games, when he ran into the reporter who had told him in October 1979 that he had made history.Grevey said he would look into the matter further, but as he told The Times in 2021, “I swear I don’t care.”But 3-pointers were hardly the only weapon that Ford had.According to CBS Boston, Ford was reported to have dunked at least once on the Hall of Famer Julius Erving, one of the most famous dunkers in N.B.A. history, whose nickname was Dr. J. That inspired Ford’s teammates to give Ford a nickname of his own: “Doc.” More

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      The Brooklyn Nets Have So Much Talent but So Little Charm

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      The Nets are again one of the Eastern Conference’s best teams, with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant leading All-Star voting. So why is there so little joy in watching them?I watched the Nets play in Brooklyn last week, and a Boston Celtics home game broke out.“M-V-P, M-V-P, M-V-P!” rang the chants, aimed not at one of the Nets but at Jayson Tatum, Boston’s feather-touch, do-it-all forward, as he toed the free-throw line in the fourth quarter of what became a runaway victory for his team.This was one of the most significant rivalry tests of the N.B.A. season, a battle between two teams vying for the best record in the Eastern Conference. It was also the first of a spate of games the Nets would play without Kevin Durant. The team’s best player, and the core of the offense, Durant sprained his left knee earlier in the week and stands to spend at least two weeks recovering.In other words, it was the type of game that reveals a team’s DNA.With much in the balance, the Nets mounted only a tepid response, fading late and losing, 109-98. That may be why the fans at Barclays Center seemed muted, why they allowed a rival like Boston to roll into town and treat the arena like a personal penthouse. The team rolled over for the Oklahoma City Thunder at home Sunday night, dropping back to four games behind the Celtics in the East.High hopes have stuck to this Nets team since the summer of 2019, when Kyrie Irving signed on to be the franchise’s floor general and promised to persuade Durant, the 2014 league M.V.P., to join him. Both stars had won N.B.A. championships in the not-so-distant past. It stood to reason that Brooklyn would become a perennial contender.The Nets are again an elite team this season. When they are clicking, as they were in December, they are capable of winning a dozen straight games on the strength of hot shooting and stern defense.So why isn’t it more joyful and exciting to watch them?Brooklyn is the N.B.A.’s most enigmatic team — awkward to root for, understand, figure out and believe in. Over the past several seasons and into the current one, the high hopes for what the Nets could become have consistently been dashed by soap opera controversies.“If you love the Nets, you have to focus on the skill of the players,” one fan told me during the game. “It’s all about the skills of this team. That’s why you watch. Because their big stars all have, how do I say this, well, they have some baggage.”For the uninitiated, here’s a quick rundown of the plot twists.Steve Nash was hired as head coach in 2020 despite having no coaching experience. His first year went well enough: The Nets were a Durant 3-pointer away from making the Eastern Conference finals.The promise of this team never quite outpaces the spectacle. The 2018 league M.V.P., James Harden, arrived in 2021 thinking he would complement Durant and Irving perfectly. Break out the Champagne, N.B.A. titles here we come.But Harden beefed with Irving, partly because Irving — who seems to have never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t want to bear hug — refused to get vaccinated for the coronavirus as the pandemic raged. That meant Irving couldn’t play home games during a period when New York demanded immunization as a prerequisite for work.Kyrie Irving led all Eastern Conference guards in All-Star voting, despite being at the center of several controversies.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesSo the Nets shipped Harden to Philadelphia midway through last season. “There was no structure” in Brooklyn, Harden said, offering a parting shot. “And even superstars, they need structure.”He continued pulling back the curtain. “Internally, things weren’t what I expected when I was trying to get traded there,” he said.In trading for Harden, the Nets received Ben Simmons, a player talented enough to have once been viewed as Magic Johnson Lite.Problem is, Simmons arrived in Brooklyn so saddled by injury and self-doubt that he had become allergic to one of basketball’s most essential and elementary skills: shooting the basketball.Nash’s team stumbled through last season, dogged by injuries, a teamwide Covid outbreak and, yes, more drama, only to be swept ignobly by the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. Durant peppered the team with a demand: Fire Nash, or trade me. (He later relented.)When the Nets began this season losing five of their first seven games, Nash was let go.I haven’t even detailed Irving’s self-inflicted wounds. They’re enough to fill a book. To keep from dragging on, I’ll say that this season could have been a redemption tour until he started it by publicly backing a holocaust-denying documentary that blamed Jews for many of the world’s woes.No, the Nets don’t leave you with the warm and fuzzies — not in the way, for example, that Golden State, fronted by Stephen Curry, or the Denver Nuggets, led by Nikola Jokic, do. But the Nets’ stars remain popular, at least by one nonscientific measure. Durant and Irving are among the league’s vote leaders for this year’s All-Star Game.“It’s all about the skills” seems to have become a necessary mantra for the many fans willing to look past all of this team’s travails.What will the Nets’ future be? How can anyone be sure when, despite all that skill, the team remains such a work in progress?Simmons is 26, still capable of becoming the superstar he was billed as when he was drafted No. 1 overall in 2016. He put up quite a stat line against Boston: 13 assists and nine rebounds, the type of play vital to Brooklyn with Durant out.But there were times when Simmons was near the basket and attempted awkward layups. Clang. He tried again. Clank.All game, Simmons did not score a single point. As he sat on the bench in the fourth quarter, the Nets already having given in, Celtics fans filled Barclays Center with their loudest roars.In the news conference after the game, I asked him: What is this team’s identity?I wanted to know if the Nets had a trademark trait they could rely on, something not only excellent but sustainable in the crunch. All championship teams contain such a quality; if you ask me, all deeply embraceable teams do, too.Simmons leaned back, shook his head as if bewildered and paused for a beat.“We are still trying to give ourselves an identity,” he said. “So maybe at the end of the year, I will give you that answer.”Basketball fans have been waiting long enough. More

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      NBA Has Sharp Rise in 50-Point Games

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      Donovan Mitchell’s 71 points in a game this week was the top mark since 2006, but a rise in offense (and a lack of defense) has made high-scoring games a routine affair.We don’t know who will do it, and we don’t know exactly when it will happen. But we do know that somebody sometime soon will score 50 points in an N.B.A. game. And then it will happen again. And again and again and again.The headlines have started to sound familiar. Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 55 on Jan. 3. Klay Thompson scored 54 and Donovan Mitchell scored 71 on Jan. 2. Luka Doncic scored 50 and 60 and 51. Pascal Siakam and Darius Garland have 50-point games this season. Lauri Markkanen just missed, with a 49-point game on Thursday. Who’s next? Kevon Looney?An event that was a rarity as little as a decade ago is now becoming commonplace, and this season in particular, players are going off for 50 or more regularly.Ten years ago, in 2012-13, only three players had 50-point games. Going back through the ’90s, ’80s and ’70s, the number of 50-point games per season was almost uniformly in the single digits.But lately, 50-point games have taken off, with an average of nearly 20 over the previous four seasons. So far this year, with a little less than half of the season complete, there have been 14.So what’s going on?To start with, teams as a whole are scoring more. The average N.B.A. team has scored 113.8 points a game this year, the highest total since 1970. Ten years ago the average was 98.1. The pace of games has also sped up, with teams averaging nearly 100 possessions every 48 minutes over the past five seasons, which had not been done since the 1980s. More possession, more shots, more points for everyone.Luka Doncic’s dominant performance against the Knicks last week included 60 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists.Tim Heitman/Getty ImagesA lot of that offense has been driven by a drastic increase in 3-pointers. In the late 1990s, teams made an average of four to six 3s per game. Ten years ago, they made 7.2. In 2017-18, the total passed 10 for the first time, and this season the average is 12.2, off 34.3 attempts.In eight of the 14 50-point games this season, the player made at least six 3s, with Thompson and Garland sinking 10 each. (Shout-out to Antetokounmpo for scoring 55 while shooting 0-for-3 from 3.)Golden State Coach Steve Kerr this week pointed to 3-point shooting and pace as key factors in the surge of 50-point performances. He also blamed defense.“Transition defense is at an all-time low in this league,” he said. “Every single night on League Pass, you see five guys standing there, somebody shoots, somebody runs long, and everybody goes: ‘Oh, the guy’s laying it up down there.’“We do it, every team does it. I think the game has gotten really loose and the players are so talented, it’s made for a lot of big scoring nights.”Saddiq Bey, a third-year player for the Detroit Pistons, has averaged 14.2 points a game in his career thus far, but he had 51 in a win over the Orlando Magic last season.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe 14 games this season were accomplished by 10 different players, and the trend over the past few years has wrapped in players with far smaller profiles than that of Antetokounmpo or Doncic. Detroit’s Saddiq Bey had 51 points last March. Fred VanVleet of the Raptors did it in 2021, and T.J. Warren had 53 points in a game for Indiana in 2020.In the past, 50-point games were typically the reserve of the greats. Wilt Chamberlain had 118 of them (one of them, of course, reaching 100 points). Next are Michael Jordan with 31 and Kobe Bryant with 25.Though some less expected names are popping for 50 these days, the big names are actually doing it less often than the Chamberlains and Jordans and Bryants. Among active players, James Harden has 23, LeBron James has 14 and Damian Lillard has 12. Of the players who scored 50 this season, Stephen Curry is tops with 11 career 50-point games.As you might expect, with 50-point games up so much, so are games in the 40-to-49-point range. Ten years ago, there were only 33 such games. In recent seasons there have typically been about 100. But this season there are already 76.A single player scoring 40 points in an N.B.A. game? Ho-hum. 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