Five seconds remaining, tie game, and a 1,297-game streak on the line.
That’s the situation LeBron James was facing late on Thursday night when he received the ball from Austin Reaves in the closing seconds of the Lakers’ game against the Raptors, tied 120-120. Entering this game, James had scored double-digit points in 1,297 consecutive games, a streak dating back to before the first iPhone was released in 2007 and when 2025 No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg was just 15 days old.
With the ball in his hands and just eight points for him on the stat sheet, James had the opportunity to attempt a game-winning basket which both could have potentially given the Lakers the win and continued his streak. Even if he missed, the game likely would have gone into overtime.
James opted against it. Instead, he passed the ball to Rui Hachimura, who hit the game-winning three-pointer to give the Lakers the win.
“The basketball gods, if you do it the right way, tend to reward you,” JJ Redick said of James after the game.
Hachimura said, “Bron he told me right before this, ‘I got you, it's gonna come to you. That was it.”
"Bron told me right before... it's gonna come to you."
— NBA (@NBA) December 5, 2025
Rui Hachimura was ready for his first-career @TISSOT Buzzer-Beater! https://t.co/dTJi6qWKeg pic.twitter.com/EOmKxxAgrB
For James, passing the ball to Hachimura seemed to be the obvious matter-of-fact decision with the opportunity to win the game.
"You always make the right play,” James said. “That’s been my M.O., that’s how I was taught the game, done that my whole career. There's no second-guessing that. Once they doubled [Reaves] and the ball got swung to me, I know it’s a numbers game. We got a four-on-three advantage and I was trying to put the ball on-time, on-target.”
"You always make the right play… there's no second-guessing that."
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) December 5, 2025
LeBron James (8 PTS, 6 REB, 11 AST) talks with the media after his streak of 10+ points is snapped at 1,297 straight games, but makes the game-winning assist in the #Lakers 123-120 win in Toronto. pic.twitter.com/k8vZnZnIlO
James was asked if he had any feelings about the streak coming to an end. “None. We won,” he said with a laugh.
“You guys have been around me for eight years, been covering my career, I always just make the right play,” James added. “That’s automatic, win, lose or draw. You make the right play and the [basketball] gods will always give it back to me. Whether I’m able to win or lose or whatever, that’s just how I was raised and how I’ll always play the game.”
James’s remarkable streak might have come to an end, but it did in celebratory fashion as the Lakers sealed the win. It’s safe to say no one will come close to his streak anytime soon anyway; Kevin Durant has the longest active streak after James with 267 straight double-digit games while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander trails him with 170 consecutive such games. Both players are well over 1,000 games away from James’s epic streak.
"Like [James has] done so many times in his career, and I remember him getting ridiculed for it early on when he would make the right play and his teammate would shoot the game-winner, he did it like he's done so many times,” Redick said. “And just knew it was good as soon as it left Rui's hands. Just a big-time play."
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as LeBron James, Lakers React to the End of His Remarkable 1,297-Game Streak.
