SAN ANTONIO (AP) — LeBron James became the youngest player ever with 30,000 career points, then got upstaged by the youngest player on the court.
Spurs point guard Dejounte Murray — a friend and mentee of James — had 19 points, 10 rebounds and seven steals to lift San Antonio over the slumping Cleveland Cavaliers 114-102 on Tuesday night.
“He’s fearless, he’s not impressed,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of the 21-year-old. “He really sets the pace for us. He’s a fine defender. He’s learning how to play the game and doing a fine job.”
Murray, making his second start since replacing a healthy Tony Parker, needed that fortitude while battling James in the fourth quarter. He soared for a tip follow, 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) was great,” said LaMarcus Aldridge, who had 30 points for San Antonio after being selected as an All-Star reserve earlier in the day.
“He’s very athletic and he brings something at that position that we haven’t had in a while. I was proud of him down the stretch. I thought he kind of grew up tonight.”
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.
“I don’t ever fully appreciate what I do anytime I accomplish something, no matter if it’s a win or a loss,” James said. “I’m looking forward to the moment when I can be done with the game and I can sit back with my family and my friends and we can drink some wine and talk about all the accomplishments that I had and feats I was able to accomplish.”
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. The airing of grievances eventually focused on the team’s poor play, which included a 148-124 loss to the Thunder on Saturday.
“If you’re going to speak out and talk, you’ve got to back it up and we didn’t do that tonight,” Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue said. “We talked about that this morning.”
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 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. Bryant was 34 years and 104 days when he got there.
“It’s just a special moment,” James said. “It’s something I never set out to do. I’m not even a score-first guy when it comes to playing basketball. I love getting my teammates involved and seeing my teammates be excited about scoring and me getting assists. For me to sit here and be the youngest player ever to reach 30,000 ... I put a lot of work into my game and it’s been a byproduct of that.”
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