James reaches milestone, Cavs’ free fall continues
SAN ANTONIO — LeBron James became the youngest player ever with 30,000 career points, but LaMarcus Aldridge scored 30 points to lift the San Antonio Spurs over the slumping Cleveland Cavaliers 114-102 on Tuesday night.
James had 28 points while becoming the seventh member of the 30,000-point club, yet he couldn’t keep the Cavaliers from dropping their 10th in 13 games.
Spurs point guard Dejounte Murray — friend and mentee of James — had 19 points, 10 rebounds and seven steals in his second start since replacing a healthy Tony Parker. Murray soared for a tip follow and then rose to disrupt James’ driving layup, which led to a 3-pointer by Danny Green that gave the Spurs a 105-94 lead with 4:20 remaining.
Murray’s effort helped San Antonio push past Cleveland in a battle between teams entangled in turmoil.
The Spurs denied reports that injured superstar Kawhi Leonard is unhappy with how the team is handling his right quadriceps tendinopathy and wants to be traded.
The Cavaliers, meanwhile, acknowledged reports that they held a team meeting to address Kevin Love’s early exit due to illness from a blowout loss at Oklahoma City and his subsequent absence from the following day’s practice.
Love said the Cavs have a history of thriving on chaos, and they seemed to put the dysfunction aside early as James got the seven points he needed to reach his milestone.
After missing his first two midrange jumpers and a pair of free throws, James made two driving layups and a 20-footer, and then rose above Danny Green for a 19-foot jumper with one second remaining in the first quarter to reach the mark. The shot put Cleveland up 29-25.
At 33 years and 24 days, James is the youngest player to get 30,000. Kobe Bryant was 34 years and 104 days when he got there.
Garrett Temple scored 19 of his career-high 34 points in the fourth quarter to lift Sacramento to a road win over Orlando. Willie Cauley-Stein had 21 points and nine rebounds and Buddy Hield added 13 points for the Kings, who stopped an eight-game losing streak. Temple accounted for all of Sacramento’s points during a 17-6 run that put the Kings ahead 103-97 with 23.5 seconds to go. Evan Fournier led the Magic with 22 points and Elfrid Payton had 21 points, seven assists and seven rebounds. Aaron Gordon added 16 and Jonathon Simmons had 14 for Orlando.