James – who is the first player to take part in 23 consecutive NBA seasons and is also the NBA’s record points scorer – contributed 12 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals as the Lakers beat Orlando for a ninth straight win.<\/p>\n
The Lakers are third in the Western Conference, while Magic are eighth in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
“Availability, I’ve always wanted to be available to my team-mates,” added James.<\/p>\n
“It’s a mental toll, trying to play a lot and being out there. I just give a lot of praise to the man above and [it’s about] just loving the game and appreciating the game.”<\/p>\n
James was not the only player to achieve a milestone as Kevin Durant passed NBA legend Michael Jordan to go fifth in the all-time scoring list in regular-season games.<\/p>\n
Durant moved to 32,294 – two ahead of Jordan – courtesy of a 27-point display for the Houston Rockets, who are fourth in the Western Conference, in their last gasp 123-122 win against the Miami Heat, who are ninth in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
“It means a lot,” said Durant, who passed Jordan with a three-pointer in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
“I’m grateful to be here and for this incredible journey it’s been. I’m looking forward to continuing.”<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 40 points for the Oklahoma City Thunder as four players were ejected in his side’s fiery 132-111 win against the Washington Wizards.<\/p>\n
The Thunder’s Ajay Mitchell, Jaylin Williams and Cason Wallace were ejected, along with Washington’s Justin Champagnie, following a mass brawl near the end of the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Reigning NBA champions Thunder remain top of the Western Conference, while the Wizards are one place off the bottom in 14th place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James – who is the first player to take part in 23 consecutive NBA seasons and is also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-557012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}