getonscoop 
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — James Harden delivered another 50-point game Wednesday night, putting on a throwback performance in the Clippers’ new arena.
The All-Star guard reached that total for the first time with Los Angeles and the 24th time in his career, pulling within one of Kobe Bryant for third most in NBA history.
Harden’s big night, with former President Barack Obama sitting next to Clippers owner Steve Ballmer behind one of the baselines, carried Los Angeles to a 123-115 victory over the Detroit Pistons.
Harden said he had met Obama before, and they had a good relationship.
“So it was pretty cool to see him at the game,” Harden said. “Probably the reason why I played so well.”
Harden already had three 40-point games this season, but he hadn’t reached the 50-point plateau that always seemed in sight when he was leading the league in scoring three times with the Houston Rockets from 2017 to 2020.
And it came at a perfect time for his desperate team, which blew a 23-point lead Tuesday against the Phoenix Suns and was without Kawhi Leonard and Norman Powell on the second night of back-to-back contests.
At 35, Harden is the second-oldest player in NBA history to score 50 points on zero days’ rest, trailing only Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, who was about four months older when he did it in February 2024.
“To see him come out and score 50 on a back-to-back, at the age of 35, just says a lot about him,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. “And competing every night and playing 38 minutes again on the back-to-back. But we needed every bit of it.”
Harden got the Clippers quickly back on track with 23 points in the first quarter and went on to finish 14-of-24 from the field, making six 3-pointers and going 16-for-20 at the free throw line. It was Harden’s fourth career 50-point game when taking 25 or fewer shots, the most by any player in the shot clock era (since 1954-55).
Harden played 38 minutes but said the heavy workload didn’t take a lot out of him.
“I can do it. It’s not like it’s my first time,” he said.
Wilt Chamberlain has the NBA record with 118 games of 50 or more points, followed by Michael Jordan with 31 and Bryant with 25.
Bryant put on plenty of scoring shows in Los Angeles, but Harden’s was the biggest yet in the Intuit Dome, the Clippers’ new arena that will host next season’s NBA All-Star Game.
Harden ended up with the eighth 50-point game in franchise history, the first since Lou Williams on Jan. 10, 2018, at Golden State. He joined Williams, Bob McAdoo and World B. Free as the only players in club history with at least four 40-point games in a season.
But he wasn’t able to get a picture after the game with Obama.
“He left,” Harden said. “I guess he wanted to beat the traffic.”
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
