Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.As you might have heard, LeBron James had a big time game Wednesday night (A 50 point, triple double effort in MSG? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?). Kobe Bryant also had another big time game with a 36 point, 9 rebound, 5 assist effort. The way these two are playing, we could talk about them all darn day in Doing Lines. But since you're going to read about them everywhere, I'll try to shine a light on some other performances.
'Melo Steals Durant's Thunder...Again: A few months back, the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder played a game where Kevin Durant exploded for a ton of points and hit a shot that everyone thought would be a game winner. That is, until Carmelo Anthony came in and jacked his Thunder with a last second bomb from the corner.
Fast forward to Thursday, where Durant exploded for 31 points (on 10-19 from the field and 3-5 from three point land), 8 rebounds and 7 assists. Durant also hit what looked like the game winning lay up with only seconds remaining. Of course, just like the last time the two met up in OKC, Melo came down and kicked the wind out of Oklahoma City with a last second driving lay up. 'Melo finished with 32 points and 11 assists, helping the Nuggets overcome the absences of Kenyon Martin and Chauncey Billups.
But back to Kevin Durant for a second. He seriously is turning into an absolute superstar. Don't sleep on him. Just look at his game log for Jan/Feb. Just saying.
How to Drop Thirty Two Games in a Row and Get Ignored: Playing with Kobe Bryant has both it's high and low points. For Pau Gasol the low point might be getting ignored after he has two absolute monster games in a row. The scary/funny/weird thing is that they were almost statistical replicas of one another. Monday against the Knicks, Gasol took second billing with 31 points (on 12-17 shooting and 7-8 from the free throw line), 14 rebounds (4 offensive), and 5 assists. Against the Raptors on Wednesday Gasol again scored 31 points (on the same 12-17 from the field and 7-8 from the free throw line), 15 rebounds (one more than the previous game), and 4 assists (one shy of his total against the Knicks). Forget Sasha Vujacic! Pau Gasol might be the Lakers' real machine.
P.S. LeBron v. Kobe Part II on Sunday, Holmes.
