Kevin Durant moves ahead of Kobe Bryant in race for NBA's scoring title – NBA Update
The Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers game on Sunday night was marred by incident involving James Harden and Metta World Peace, which saw MWP hitting Harden with an elbow on the face.
However, with this incident becoming the focal point and then with the Lakers comeback victory in double overtime, people failed to realize that another individual battle was being fought on the court, one between Kobe Bryant and
Kevin Durant for the league scoring title.
Kobe Bryant scored 26 point in that game but Kevin Durant posted 35 to surpass the Black Mamba as the highest scorer in the league at the moment. Durant is averaging 27.91 points per game after the Sunday night loss while Kobe
is averaging 27.86 points per game.
The difference is that little, but Durant has 2 games left in the season as compared to one for Bryant. In that scenario, Durant is more likely to take the crown, which will make him the first person since Michael Jordan to claim
the league’s scoring title for 3 straight years.
When asked, Kobe said that winning the scoring title was “not very important” and that if he wanted to go for the crown, he would have gone for a bigger game Friday night against San Antonio when he returned from injury.
“If it was important, I would have scored 50” said Kobe referring to the game against San Antonio.
Kevin Durant also feels that it is not important how many points he scores in the season and his 1st priority is to ensure that the teams succeeds.
“I've noticed playing in this league for five years that if you force anything, that's when bad results come. I never want to force nothing” said Durant
Both players are accomplished scorers who have won the crown before as well and do not need another one to secure or ensure their legacy in the game. It is also known that both players always give more priority to their team and
for them; the most important stat is an addition in the win column.
However, with them in a situation where both are so close to each other in the race for the scoring title and given the competitive nature of both players, it is hard to believe that none of them is thinking about going for the
record. Kevin Durant has an opportunity to join an elite club which includes the likes of Michael Jordan so it could be that he is not going after the crown.
Thunder coach Scott Brooks had a great idea to settle the issue rather than leaving it to be decided in the coming games.
"I think they should just play a 12-minute, one-on-one game, full court. Winner takes it all. That'd be pretty cool. It'd get good ratings” said Coach Brooks.
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