Inglewood, California-James Harden delivered another 50-point game on Wednesday night, organizing a setback in the new clippers arena.
The All-Star Guard reached that total for the first time with Los Angeles and the 24th time in his career, pulling inside one of Kobe Bryant for third place in the history of the NBA.
Harden’s great night, with former President Barack Obama sitting next to the owner of the Clippers Steve Ballmer behind one of the baselines, led Los Angeles to a 123-115 victory over the Detroit Pistons.
Harden said he had met Obama before, and had a good relationship.
“So it was great to see him in the game,” said Harden. “Probably the reason I played so well.”
Harden already had three games of 40 points this season, but he had not reached the 50 -point plateau that always seemed in sight when he led the league in annotations three times with the Houston Rockets from 2017 to 2020.
And he arrived at a perfect moment for his desperate team, which blew an advantage of 23 points on Tuesday against the Phoenix Suns and was without Kawhi Leonard and Norman Powell on the second night of consecutive competitions.
At 35, Harden is the second oldest player in the history of the NBA to score 50 points at the break of Zero Days, just following the Golden State Warriors star, Stephen Curry, which was approximately four months older when he did it in February 2024.
“Seeing him exit and score 50 in a consequent, at the age of 35, he only says a lot about him,” said the clippers coach Tyronn Lue. “And competing every night and playing 38 minutes again in the consecutive part. But we needed each part.”
Harden quickly recovered the clippers with 23 points in the first quarter and then finished 14 of 24 from the field, making six triples and going 16 by 20 in the free throw line. It was the fourth game of 50 points in his Harden career when he took 25 or less shots, most for any player in the era of the shooting clock (since 1954-55).
Harden played 38 minutes, but said that the heavy workload did not take away much.
“I can do it. It’s not as if it were my first time,” he said.
Wilt Chamberlain has the NBA record with 118 games of 50 or more points, followed by Michael Jordan with 31 and Bryant with 25.
Bryant organized many scoring shows in Los Angeles, but Harden was the biggest so far in Intuit Dome, the new clippers sand that will organize the NBA All-Star game next season.
Harden ended with the eighth 50 -point game in the history of the franchise, the first from Lou Williams on January 10, 2018 in Golden State. He joined Williams, Bob Mcadoo and World B. Free as the only players in the club’s history with at least four 40 -point games in a season.
But he couldn’t get a photo after the game with Obama.
“He left,” said Harden. “I think I wanted to overcome traffic.”
ESPN Research and Associated Press contributed to this report.
