LeBron James ties career high with 9 3-pointers, scores 40 points as Lakers beat Nets 116-104

NEW YORK (AP) — LeBron James would only hint at how long he expects to keep playing NBA basketball.

“Not very long, I’m not going to play another 21 years, that’s for damn sure,” James said after he had one of the best shooting nights of his illustrious career, going 9 for 10 behind the arc to tie his career high for 3-pointers. “I don’t know when that door will close, but I don’t have much time left.”

James once again looked like an ageless wonder as he played is 1,485th career game and matched a season high with 40 points to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a 116-104 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday night.

James had the sellout crowd at Barclays Center standing on its feet as he put the finishing touches on his 3-point shooting display in the fourth quarter. He reached 40 points for the third time this season, most recently on March 16 in a home loss to Golden State.

The Lakers have won five of six since then, and this victory moved them a season-high nine games over .500 with seven games remaining in the regular season. Los Angeles remained ninth in the Western Conference, but the Lakers could catch the Sacramento Kings for eighth or the Phoenix Suns for seventh in the West, taking them out of the single-elimination No. 9 vs. No. 10 play-in game.

If James has another game like this in the postseason, just about anything is possible for the NBA’s career scoring leader who continues to amaze at age 39.

The 20-time All Star finished 13 for 17 overall as the Lakers played the fourth game of a six-game road trip and rebounded from a loss Friday night at Indiana that snapped their five-game winning streak.

“I put in a lot of time working on my craft,” James said.

Anthony Davis added 24 points and 14 rebounds, and Rui Hachimura had 20 points and 10 rebounds in a game the Lakers led by 20 in the first quarter and controlled throughout. Brooklyn got its deficit inside double digits just once in the second half.

Cam Thomas led the Nets with 30 points, trying to rally them after their dismal start.

“But can’t do nothing when somebody hits 9 for 10 from 3,” Thomas said. “Made every 3 he put up so it's tough, but I feel like we played really well second through the fourth. It was just the first quarter was pretty tough on us, starting off that slow,”

The Lakers got 114 of their 116 points from their starters.

James also made nine 3-pointers Jan. 24, 2023, against the Clippers, shooting 9 for 14. His 90% accuracy was the second-best of his career in games in which he made at least five 3-pointers, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He was 5 for 5 against Oklahoma City on Dec. 23 of this season.

Brooklyn was 0 for 8 from the field when interim coach Kevin Ollie called his first timeout just over 4 minutes into the first quarter after James grabbed a defensive rebound and hit Davis in stride with a long pass for a breakaway dunk, and the futility continued until Nic Claxton broke the ice after an 0-for-11 start by banking in a 10-footer.

Still, the lead rapidly grew to 24-4 with 4 ½ minutes left in the opening quarter, and the Barclays Center crowd was silenced as the Nets were laying this particular Easter egg. The Lakers’ lead was 31-10 after one quarter as Brooklyn shot 4-for-21 and was outrebounded 21-11.

James kept single-handedly holding off the Nets in the third and fourth quarters with 3s, the eighth of which came as he was falling to his left from the corner to give the Lakers a 108-91 lead.

James then was isolated against Claxton on the perimeter on the next possession and dribbled between his legs several times before making his ninth 3 to make it 111-93.

UP NEXT

Lakers: At Toronto on Tuesday.

Nets: At Indiana on Monday.

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Brooklyn Nets center Nic Claxton, left, is defended by Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Thomas during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 31, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/John Munson)

Los Angeles Lakers forward Rui Hachimura (28) passes the ball from between Brooklyn Nets center Nic Claxton (33) and guard Cam Thomas (24) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 31, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/John Munson)

Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis, right, dribbles the ball around Brooklyn Nets center Nic Claxton during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 31, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/John Munson)

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, left, drives against Brooklyn Nets forward Trendon Watford during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 31, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/John Munson)

Los Angeles Lakers forward Rui Hachimura (28) dunks next to Brooklyn Nets center Nic Claxton (33) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 31, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/John Munson)

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) drives around Brooklyn Nets guard Mikal Bridges (1) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 31, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/John Munson)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is moving toward reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The Justice Department proposal would recognize the medical uses of cannabis, but wouldn't legalize it for recreational use.

The proposal would move marijuana from the “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III."

So what does that mean, and what are the implications?

Technically, nothing yet. The proposal must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, and then undergo a public-comment period and review from an administrative judge, a potentially lengthy process.

Still, the switch is considered “paradigm-shifting, and it’s very exciting,” Vince Sliwoski, a Portland, Oregon-based cannabis and psychedelics attorney who runs well-known legal blogs on those topics, told The Associated Press when the federal Health and Human Services Department recommended the change.

“I can’t emphasize enough how big of news it is,” he said.

It came after President Joe Biden asked both HHS and the attorney general, who oversees the DEA, last year to review how marijuana was classified. Schedule I put it on par, legally, with heroin, LSD, quaaludes and ecstasy, among others.

Biden, a Democrat, supports legalizing medical marijuana for use “where appropriate, consistent with medical and scientific evidence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “That is why it is important for this independent review to go through.”

No. Schedule III drugs — which include ketamine, anabolic steroids and some acetaminophen-codeine combinations — are still controlled substances.

They're subject to various rules that allow for some medical uses, and for federal criminal prosecution of anyone who traffics in the drugs without permission.

No changes are expected to the medical marijuana programs now licensed in 38 states or the legal recreational cannabis markets in 23 states, but it's unlikely they would meet the federal production, record-keeping, prescribing and other requirements for Schedule III drugs.

There haven't been many federal prosecutions for simply possessing marijuana in recent years, even under marijuana’s current Schedule I status, but the reclassification wouldn't have an immediate impact on people already in the criminal justice system.

“Put simple, this move from Schedule I to Schedule III is not getting people out of jail,” said David Culver, senior vice president of public affairs at the U.S. Cannabis Council.

But rescheduling in itself would have some impact, particularly on research and marijuana business taxes.

Because marijuana is on Schedule I, it's been very difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies that involve administering the drug. That has created something of a Catch-22: calls for more research, but barriers to doing it. (Scientists sometimes rely instead on people’s own reports of their marijuana use.)

Schedule III drugs are easier to study, though the reclassification wouldn't immediately reverse all barriers to study.

“It’s going to be really confusing for a long time,” said Ziva Cooper, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids. “When the dust has settled, I don’t know how many years from now, research will be easier.”

Among the unknowns: whether researchers will be able to study marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries and how the federal Food and Drug Administration might oversee that.

Some researchers are optimistic.

“Reducing the schedule to schedule 3 will open up the door for us to be able to conduct research with human subjects with cannabis,” said Susan Ferguson, director of University of Washington’s Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute in Seattle.

Under the federal tax code, businesses involved in “trafficking” in marijuana or any other Schedule I or II drug can't deduct rent, payroll or various other expenses that other businesses can write off. (Yes, at least some cannabis businesses, particularly state-licensed ones, do pay taxes to the federal government, despite its prohibition on marijuana.) Industry groups say the tax rate often ends up at 70% or more.

The deduction rule doesn't apply to Schedule III drugs, so the proposed change would cut cannabis companies' taxes substantially.

They say it would treat them like other industries and help them compete against illegal competitors that are frustrating licensees and officials in places such as New York.

“You’re going to make these state-legal programs stronger,” says Adam Goers, an executive at medical and recreational cannabis giant Columbia Care. He co-chairs a coalition of corporate and other players that’s pushing for rescheduling.

It could also mean more cannabis promotion and advertising if those costs could be deducted, according to Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Center.

Rescheduling wouldn't directly affect another marijuana business problem: difficulty accessing banks, particularly for loans, because the federally regulated institutions are wary of the drug's legal status. The industry has been looking instead to a measure called the SAFE Banking Act. It has repeatedly passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

Indeed, there are, including the national anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. President Kevin Sabet, a former Obama administration drug policy official, said the HHS recommendation “flies in the face of science, reeks of politics” and gives a regrettable nod to an industry “desperately looking for legitimacy.”

Some legalization advocates say rescheduling weed is too incremental. They want to keep the focus on removing it completely from the controlled substances list, which doesn't include such items as alcohol or tobacco (they're regulated, but that's not the same).

Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that simply reclassifying marijuana would be “perpetuating the existing divide between state and federal marijuana policies.” Minority Cannabis Business Association President Kaliko Castille said rescheduling just "re-brands prohibition," rather than giving an all-clear to state licensees and putting a definitive close to decades of arrests that disproportionately pulled in people of color.

“Schedule III is going to leave it in this kind of amorphous, mucky middle where people are not going to understand the danger of it still being federally illegal,” he said.

Cloud 9 Cannabis employee Beau McQueen, right, helps a customer, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Arlington, Wash. The shop is one of the first dispensaries to open under the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board's social equity program, established in efforts to remedy some of the disproportionate effects marijuana prohibition had on communities of color. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Budtender Rey Cruz weighs cannabis for a customer at the Marijuana Paradise on Friday, April 19, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

FILE - Marijuana plants are seen at a secured growing facility in Washington County, N.Y., May 12, 2023. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)