From the start, LeBron James has loved Madison Square Garden as much as any NBA player, home or away, has ever loved it. He has publicly expressed his desire to play 82 games a year in the Garden.
He has called the arena “my favorite playground.”
So in an ideal Hollywood script, James would have broken Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record 2,800 miles from Hollywood, right here in the Garden on Tuesday night. Abdul-Jabbar grew up in New York as Lew Alcindor, and surpassing his 38,387 point total in the big city would have made for a perfectly appropriate scene.
But that couldn’t happen, not with James entering the game 117 points away from history. The next best thing was firmly in his grasp, and that was hurdling Mark Jackson and Steve Nash on the career assists list while helping the Lakers to beat the Knicks in overtime, 129-123, with an historic triple-double to boot.
It was hardly the prettiest triple-double James has posted — 28 points on 11-for-25 shooting, 11 assists, 10 rebounds — and yet who the hell cares? At 38, working on a bum foot, he became the first NBA player to hit the trifecta in his 20th season or beyond. And hard as it might be to believe, the juggernaut who’s about to become the league’s most prolific scorer left the building knowing that only three men — traditional point guards John Stockton, Jason Kidd and Chris Paul — have ever dished the ball better than he does.
“It’s amazing,” James said, “because that’s just what I love to do, is get my guys involved, try to put the ball on time and on target with my guys throughout the course of my career.”
And of course James was aware of what it meant to pass a certain someone in a certain building in a certain city; he’s aware of absolutely everything around him. “Mark Jackson played here and was drafted here by the Knicks,” he said. “A super cool thing.”
James didn’t just beat a former Knick on this night, but a bunch of current Knicks, too. James sank a 3-pointer with 1:41 left in regulation that gave the Lakers a six-point lead and felt enough like a dagger to inspire him to stare defiantly at his teammates. After the Knicks rallied to tie, James helped bottle up Julius Randle’s vain attempt at a buzzer-beating win, then scored the Lakers’ first and last field goals of overtime.
No, he wasn’t losing this game, even with the unworthy supporting cast around him. James is now 89 points away from the scoring record, and swears he isn’t sweating it.
“I didn’t get to this point in my career by thinking about records or how many points I have,” James said. “I just play the game the right way. I approach the game every night on trying to be a triple threat.”
The crowd sure respected his triple-threat ability. Never have Knicks fans been more entertained by a defeat at the hands of a 23-28 team.
New Yorkers have always appreciated the true greats, from Jordan to Kobe to LeBron. With James, it’s a bit more personal. Though Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant never seriously considered signing with the Knicks, James represented a credible target way back when.
In 2010, when James stood in the middle of the most publicized free-agent chase in the history of American sports, the Knicks held the ultimate homecourt advantage over the other five finalists for his services. They had the Garden in their hip pocket and merely had to convince James that they could field a team around him that was worthy of the stage.
The Knicks had spent two years clearing the cap space to sign James, who delivered a 50-point game at the Garden in 2008, and a 52-point game at the Garden in 2009. Some New Yorkers chanted “M-V-P” for James, and all witnesses understood exactly what they were watching.
“To get a standing ovation in the greatest basketball arena in the world is a dream come true for me,” James said then. “It was one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
When the moment of truth finally arrived, former Garden president Dave Checketts offered his ex-employers some advice: “If I was them right now,” Checketts said, “I’d get A-Rod and Eli Manning and Derek Jeter in a room with LeBron on July 1.” Instead the Knicks’ delegation included owner James Dolan, team president Donnie Walsh (who was in a wheelchair after surgery), coach Mike D’Antoni, former star Allan Houston and MSG Sports president Scott O’Neil.
They struck out swinging in their two-hour sitdown. James signed with the Heat and launched a second career defined by the four titles he has won for three teams.
More than a dozen years after The Decision, James arrived with great fanfare at the Garden, beat the Knicks again, and then pledged “to be in this league for at least a few more years.” That’s good news for New Yorkers who cherish the city game, and the art of sharing the ball.
Those fans will get more opportunities to appreciate the incomparable LeBron James, who loves the Garden as much as any Knick ever has.
