In Friday night’s 136-125 victory over the Detroit Pistons, Russell Westbrook scored 23 points to become the 25th player in NBA history to reach 25,000 points. Kawhi Leonard scored 21 of his 33 points in the first half.
James Harden, Westbrook’s teammate, became the second player to reach 25,000 points when Harden achieved the record in December. Westbrook also had nine assists. With 2:44 left, Westbrook made his last basket, a running layup.
After scoring a basket, Westbrook fouled Cade Cunningham right away and joined his teammates at the bench to celebrate. “I’m so grateful to be on this team,” he said. “I don’t take any of this for granted.”
Westbrook joins LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and James Harden as the fourth active player to achieve the milestone.
In NBA history, Harden and Westbrook are the third duo of players to score 25,000 points combined. They join Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett of the 2013–14 Nets and LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony of the 2021–22 Lakers.
Los Angeles trailed by as many as 14 points in the first quarter and had a poor start, but they scored 109 points in the last three quarters. They made 48.3% of their 3-pointers and 59.6% of their field goals.
“We had a bunch of defensive mistakes at the start of the game,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. “We weren’t guarding their shooters the way we planned, but we started paying attention to detail after the first timeout. Monty [Williams] has the Pistons playing pretty good basketball, but it is tough to close games with such a young team.”
The Clippers, who have won seven straight, were led by Paul George, who scored 18 points.
George, who had missed the previous game due to groin pain, played 27:20.
Lue said, “He looked good.” “We were going to play him more minutes, but we didn’t need him.”
Bojan Bogdanovic scored 26 points and Jaden Ivey scored 28 for Detroit, which is 4-41 following a 2-1 start. 21 more points came from Marcus Sasser.
The Clippers were ahead 65-59 at the half, and they continued to score quickly in the third. With five minutes remaining in the quarter, Leonard scored his 30th point after putting Los Angeles ahead 89-80.
Before Westbrook made a 3-pointer, Detroit responded with an 8-0 run. The Clippers were ahead 101-90 entering the fourth quarter thanks to a last-second 3-pointer by Norman Powell.
Los Angeles had a 108-90 lead after the first minute of the fourth quarter after Powell opened with another three. The Clippers scored nine points in 74 seconds to end the game, even though Detroit closed the gap to 116-109.
At the conclusion of the game, Westbrook and Ivey had a little talk.
Along with LeBron James, Westbrook is the second player in NBA history to have 25,000 points, 8,000 rebounds, and 8,000 assists.