OAKLAND–Lou Williams had a career night. Kevin Durant has had a career.
On a night when Williams set a career-high with 50 points to lead the Los Angeles Clippers to a 125-106 win over the Warriors, Durant hit a memorable milestone as the Golden State forward eclipsed 20,000 points with a 40-point effort.
Durant dropped 25 in the first half to reach the threshold by the time the teams split for the locker room, and after a Warriors’ foul, the game took a brief pause so the fans inside Oracle Arena could honor Durant with a long standing ovation. Durant attempted to hurry the celebration along, pointing for the officials to speed up the action so that the game could resume.
Golden State head coach Steve Kerr said afterward that he was barely phased by the milestone, particularly because Durant is so accomplished.
“Guys like that, guys like Kevin once every few months Raymond (Ridder) tells us there’s another milestone and you go on,” Kerr said. “I don’t mean to downplay it but he’s one of the all-time greats. So there’s going to be another one in a month and Raymond will tell us about it. Everybody will cheer and he’s Kevin Durant. That’s 20,000, second-youngest, who was the youngest? LeBron? Not bad company.”
While Warriors’ media relations director Ray Ridder always has Golden State superlatives handy, Durant’s milestone oozes with history. At just 29 years and 103 days old, Durant is the second youngest player to reach the 20,000-point threshold, following LeBron James who entered the NBA straight out of high school. Durant beat Kobe Bryant to the mark by 19 days, and needed just 11 more career games than James to hit 20,000 career points.
“It was amazing, he had 40 points on 18 shots,” Kerr said. “That just doesn’t happen. So it was great to get him back. But obviously bittersweet with the loss. Great to have him back, that was probably the bright spot in the game was that he looked healthy. He looked fine. Moved well. Obviously shot it well. So hopefully now he’ll be okay for the foreseeable future.”