Celtics praise LeBron following his climb to top spot in NBA's all-time scoring list

It's no secret that LeBron James and the Celtics have had a sometimes less than friendly history. But after James became the NBA's all-time leading scorer on Tuesday night, even an organization that has traditionally been a rival to King James had to give him his flowers.

James surpassed the former mark of 38,387 regular-season points held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a record he had for more than three decades that many assumed was unbreakable before LeBron got within spitting distance. As of right now, James has set the new mark at 38,390, a number that will only increase the longer he plays.

After he broke the record, Jaylen Brown and Grant Williams were among the many voices in the NBA who showed their praise for James' accomplishment.

Speaking before the Celtics 106-99 win over the Philadelphia 76ers Wednesday night at TD Garden — their first game since James broke the record — Celtics interim head coach Joe Mazzulla said he thinks James is an inspiration to the league.

"You know, to push yourself and try to achieve a level of greatness," he said. "So, grateful for kind of the standard he set for what you have to do. And it was cool to see."

Sixers coach and former Celtics skipper Doc Rivers said it was awesome to see James break Abdul-Jabbar's mark.

"Where he's gonna send the record to is — as we've probably said with Kareem — when he finishes, is unreachable," he said. "But, I just can't imagine someone ever getting this record, but you know someone will."

Rivers pointed out that it will probably be decades before anyone touches whatever James' final scoring mark ends up becoming.

"Very few of us will be around when it's broken," he told the press pre-game.

According to a GBH News review of LeBron James' scoring records, James currently has 1,685 regular season points against the Celtics in his 20 seasons in the NBA. His first outing against Boston came all the way back on Nov. 14, 2003, when the 18-year-old scored what he would now consider a pedestrian 10 points in a 91-82 loss to the Celtics, at what was still referred to as the FleetCenter in Boston.

In his latest outing in Boston, James dropped 41 points in an overtime loss to the C's that featured plenty of theatrics at TD Garden. In between then, he's won four NBA titles, four MVP awards, racked up the fourth-most assists in NBA history, has had some classic playoff duels with the Celtics and had no regard for human life at least once.

Wherever you stand on the seemingly endless debate on who the greatest of all time time really is or if any one person can even hold such a title, LeBron's impact on the game is singular.

And for players like Blake Griffin, who scored 15 points on five threes on Wednesday night against Philly, the way James has gone about breaking records with the Atlas-like expectations he's carried his whole career is as impressive as anything.

"I think I first heard about him when he was maybe 15, 16 years old. Pre–social media heard about him. So you know what type of, like, expectations you have when that's the case," Griffin said after Boston's win. "And he's risen to the occasion every time and he's exceeded people's expectations. That's unbelievably impressive. So, [I'm] happy for him and it's a good look for the NBA to have a guy leading the way like that."

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect LeBron's correct age in his first regular season game against the Celtics.