After breaking Robert Horry’s record for 3-pointers in Game 1 of the 2016 NBA finals, LeBron James now passes Kobe Bryant for 10th place on the all-time NBA Finals scoring list. Similar to James, Bryant also played in seven Finals and scored 937 points and James passed it with 945 points.
After being heavily criticised for his moderate contributions during the first two games of the series, James was brilliant in Game 3, coming up with 32 points, and 11.
James is a willing passer and has never been a score-first player, but still he averaged an astonishing 27.2 points during his 13-year career. This makes the feat even more impressive as Kobe, who retired earlier this year, was a pure scorer. While King James finds the same satisfaction in racking up assists as he does in putting the ball in the basket, Kobe felt proud of putting up the points.
The 31-year old hasn’t really been viewed as a big-time scorer, but he always presents his best in the Finals. With seven Finals appearances, no one should be surprised that he is now tenth on the list. He follows Magic Johnson (971 points) and John Havlicek (1,018 points) and if he keeps performing at the same level, he could pass both of them before the end of this year’s Finals.
The table is topped by the legendary Jerry West with 1679 points and with 1317 points followed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
