{"id":130102,"date":"2025-03-22T17:33:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T21:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=130102"},"modified":"2025-03-22T17:33:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T21:33:17","slug":"kevin-durant-joins-lebron-james-40-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/22\/kevin-durant-joins-lebron-james-40-points\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant Joins LeBron James In NBA History Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now in his 17th NBA season, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a> is one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/09\/jayson-tatum-top-10-celtics-scoring\/\" target=\"_self\">top scorers<\/a> in league history. He has totaled 30,469 points, a figure topped by <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/history\/leaders\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">only seven players<\/a>. With a somewhat healthy year next season, the 36-year-old can conceivably move into the top five on the all-time scoring leaderboard. After his performance on Friday, he joined <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a> as the only two players to accomplish an awesome feat.<\/p>\n<h2>Kevin Durant Joins LeBron James In NBA History Books<\/h2>\n<h3>Kevin Durant Has Scored At Least 40 Points Against All 30 NBA Teams<\/h3>\n<p>Friday night saw Durant\u2019s Phoenix Suns defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers by the score of <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401705587\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">123-112<\/a>. That was Phoenix\u2019s third straight victory. All of a sudden, the Cavaliers have lost four in a row.<\/p>\n<p>In the Suns victory, Durant lit up the scoreboard. He finished the outing with 42 points on 17-29 shooting from the field, 4-9 from beyond the arc, and 4-4 from the free-throw line. He also added six rebounds, eight assists, and a block.<\/p>\n<p>With that performance, the 6-foot-11 forward made history. Kevin Durant is now just the second player ever along with LeBron James to have scored at least 40 points in a game against all 30 teams.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kevin Durant joins LeBron James as the only two players to score 40 points against every NBA team.<\/p>\n<p>Insanity. \ud83e\udd2f <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hUOJvjb5Tr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/hUOJvjb5Tr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LegionHoops\/status\/1903467798887825720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 22, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>To be fair, a player would have had to play for multiple teams in order to have an opportunity to do so. For example, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bryanko01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kobe Bryant<\/a> couldn\u2019t accomplish this due to the fact he never played against the Los Angeles Lakers being that is the only team\u2019s jersey he donned during his career.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, it is an impressive feat for the two-time champion. It\u2019s also interesting that the last team he dropped at least 40 on is the Cavaliers. That is the team he won his two rings against in 2017 and 2018 while playing for the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the Suns not living up to expectations this season, it has been yet another mighty productive season for Durant. In 58 outings, he is posting averages of 26.6 points, 6.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 1.2 blocks.<\/p>\n<h3>Suns In Battle For Play-In Tournament Spot<\/h3>\n<p>The Suns are trying to make the best of what has mostly been a lost season for the team. Even with their three straight victories, they currently sit three games under .500 at 34-37. Improvement from last season\u2019s team that suffered an opening round sweep in the playoffs at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves were expected after hiring head coach Mike Budenholzer and signing point guard <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jonesty01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyus Jones<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Even by winning out, Phoenix cannot equal last season\u2019s mark of 49-33. They are attempting to salvage something out of this season by at least making the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/16\/nets-projected-worst-team-preseason-play-in-hopes\/\" target=\"_self\">Play-In Tournament<\/a>. There is hope for that due to their improved play of late along with the Dallas Mavericks dealing with a multitude of injuries.<\/p>\n<p>With 11 games remaining, the Suns have crept their way back into the last Play-In Tournament position, 10th in the West. Dallas has the same 34-37 record, but Phoenix possesses the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n<p>A one-and-done in the Play-In Tournament would still constitute as a huge disappointment. It remains to be seen if they make it, and if their better play of late continues. The Suns next play at home on Monday against the Milwaukee Bucks.<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: \u00a9 Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now in his 17th NBA season, Kevin Durant is one of the top scorers in league history. He has totaled 30,469 points, a figure topped by only seven players. With a somewhat healthy year next season, the 36-year-old can conceivably move into the top five on the all-time scoring leaderboard. After his performance on Friday, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":130119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,3,28],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-130102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-suns","tag-kevin-durant"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130102"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130121,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130102\/revisions\/130121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}