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.The last time we got together, three different players scored 40 points or more on the same night. Well, maybe it's not as rare of an occurrence as we thought, since we were just a single point away from it happening again on Wednesday.
Chris Paul missed by one with 39, but Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade each delivered, with 41 and 40 respectively.
Dwyane Wade's 40 points, four rebounds, and five assists were just enough to carry his team to a close road victory over the Wizards. Gilbert Arenas had 32 of his own in the loss, but did it on a far less attractive 9-for-27 shooting line, as opposed to Wade's 14-for-26.
Chris Paul was dazzling, and had 39 points (on 14-for-23 shooting), five rebounds, seven assists, and a couple of steals. On the other end of the court, Jason Terry had 18 in the fourth quarter (and 35 in the game), on 12-18 shooting and 4-5 from three-point land, But ultimately, his two missed free throws down the stretch may have done as more to influence the game's final outcome than his scoring did.
Kobe Bryant had an outstanding line of 41 points, six rebounds, four assists, and four steals. He did it by shooting a tidy 50 percent from the field, and you could tell from the opening minutes that even on the second night of a back-to-back, that Bryant wouldn't allow himself to be outshined by his former teammate, Trevor Ariza.
Speaking of Ariza, he and Ron Artest basically canceled each other out. Besides the pair picking up double technicals early, there weren't any fireworks to report, and both finished with an identical 15 points. Not only were their numbers similar, so was their play: each hit a clutch three-pointer with under 30 seconds left in regulation, Ariza's coming after Artest's to send the game into overtime.
Other notable numbers from Wednesday's action:
Carmelo Anthony finally cooled off a bit, managing just 22 points on 8-24 shooting. But when you have rookie Ty Lawson coming off the bench for 23 points in 28 minutes, on 9-10 shooting, the end result was still a blowout win for the Nuggets.
Derek Fisher played 34 minutes, and somehow managed to record 0 points, 0 rebounds, and 0 assists -- and he's the point guard! But he did manage two steals, including the one on the game's final play where he stripped the ball from Trevor Ariza.
Allen Iverson once again came off the bench, but in his second game of the season, was more productive in that role. A.I. scored 18 points (on 8-12 shooting) and handed out seven assists in 28 minutes of action.
Amar'e Stoudemire had 19 points and 11 rebounds in the first half against the Orlando Magic. It was the first flash of the old, explosive Amar'e we were used to seeing before his injury last February. Unfortunately, it didn't last in the second half, as he finished with 25 and 14, and the Suns suffered their first loss of the season.
