LeBron James described his left elbow as “pretty sore right now, a little feeling like one of them funny bone situations, but even more intense” following Thursday’s 120‑113 loss to the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena.
On testing the injury during the game, James said, “Obviously just something you’ll monitor and see how it feels tomorrow, but game-wise, you get off to a slow start and kind of fighting uphill from there.”
Reflecting on the team’s effort, he added, “We gave a great effort. We had an opportunity, had a one-possession game late in the game, didn’t make enough plays. Give credit to them.”
James praised Jaxson Hayes’ performance after Deandre Ayton exited early. “It’s not only just Jaxson, but we got the utmost confidence in him. It’s about everybody who has to step up. It won’t be the last time we’ve had somebody go down,” he said.
The Lakers star discussed the significance of breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career field goal record. “Just being a link in my name, being mentioned with some of the greatest ever played this game, has always been humbling and pretty cool,” James said.
Regarding his signature turnaround fadeaway, James explained, “It’s one of my patented shots. I worked on it throughout my career. Losing the finals to Dallas, that was my whole everything in the post. I continued to dial in on that throughout the rest of my career.”
On the severity of the elbow, he stated, “Let’s see what happens over the next couple days. Hopefully I wake up tomorrow and it doesn’t feel too much worse than it is now or if it feels better, that’d be great.”
James reflected on the sheer scale of his scoring milestone. “It’s an unbelievable feat. I had never had a goal to have that record. Came into this league understanding I had to start from scratch and get myself back to possibly being the best player in the world. Tonight wasn’t one of the goals, but it’s a pretty cool feat,” he said.
Despite James’ 16 points and historic field goal, the Lakers were unable to overcome Denver’s balanced attack. Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray each scored 28 points, with Jokic adding 12 rebounds and 13 assists. Jamal Murray scored 20 points in the first half to help the short-handed Nuggets.
With the win, Denver improves to 39‑24, while Los Angeles falls to 37‑25 in the Western Conference standings. The Nuggets host the New York Knicks Friday, and the Lakers return home to face the Indiana Pacers.
