LeBron James caught the basketball at the top of the 3-point arc Thursday in Toronto with an opportunity to extend a streak that began Jan. 6, 2007.
Quite literally, he passed it up — and it won the Lakers a game, while ending his streak.
James had scored 10 or more points in all 1,297 regular-season games he had played since that night in 2007, during his fourth NBA season, and it had lasted for 6,907 days — 18 years — all the way into this, his record-setting 23rd season.
The streak had survived close calls before, as recently as Monday, when James stayed in a blowout loss long enough to finish with 13 points. And he had scored just 11 in his season debut Nov. 18, after a three-week absence because of sciatica.
The NBA’s all-time leading scorer, James might have prolonged it for another day Thursday, as well, on a night against the Raptors when the Lakers were short-handed and he had made just four of his 17 shots, including none of his five 3-point attempts. James was sitting on eight points when he received a pass with three seconds left and the Lakers tied 120-120 with the Raptors.
James dribbled to the free-throw line, but instead of rising for his 18th attempt, he passed to an open Rui Hachimura in the left corner, who made a game-winning 3-pointer.
“You always make the right play,” said James, who finished with 11 assists. “That’s just been my M.O. That’s how I was taught the game, done that my whole career, there’s not even one second guessing that. Once they doubled (Austin Reaves) and the ball got swung to me, I know it’s a numbers game. We got a four-on-three advantage and just trying to put the ball on time, on target.”
The streak was so long that the last time James failed to score in double digits, on Jan. 5, 2007, the top overall pick in the most recent NBA draft, Dallas’ 18-year-old Cooper Flagg, was just 15 days old.
It was so long that the second-longest double-digit scoring streak of 866 games, belonging to Michael Jordan, was dwarfed by James years ago.
Lakers coach J.J. Redick called it “the right play” to make.
“Streak of whatever it is, 1,297 games, Bron is acutely aware of how many points he has, at that point,” Redick said. “He’s done it so many times in his career, and I remember him getting ridiculed for it early on when he would make the right play and his teammate would shoot the game-winner, he did it like he’s done so many times.”
Redick later added that “the basketball gods, if you do it the right way, they tend to reward you.”
