It was just last weekend ago, we were talking about Kevin Durant's crazily efficient 54-point performance. Who knew that would kick off a week of torrid scoring performances — including a few more from Durant who is on a kick of 10 straight games with at least 30 points or more (we will get to that later) — that featured a Madison Square Garden record, two games with players hitting 10 3-pointers and a string of 40 point games.
This post will focus on the weekend games, but we would be remiss if we did not at least mention Rudy Gay's 41-point performance in New Orleans (before a strained Achilles the following night forced him to the sideline) or LaMarcus Aldridge's 15-straight points to lead the Blazers to a win over the Nuggets on Thursday night.
The real fireworks, it seemed started Friday with a Madison Square Garden-record performance from Carmelo Anthony.
Keep Calm, Stay Melo
Friday night Carmelo Anthony put in an incredible scoring performance, dropping 62 points on 23-for-35 shooting against the Bobcats. It was a 29-point win and so Anthony could have gone for more if the Knicks opted to play him more in the fourth quarter. He still played 38:39, so it was not like Anthony did not get his full run.
He was just in one of those zones that a scorer like Anthony gets into sometimes and the points just kept piling up and piling up.
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Anthony did a lot of the work himself and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist or Josh McRoberts had a hand in his face on a number of the shots. Anthony was just making his shots.
His shot chart shows you that he was making buckets from all over the place. No defense was going to be able to handle him.
As long as he stays away from the right side of the floor, Anthony was just tearing up the Bobcats defense. It is amazing these scoring performances do not hapen more often with Anthony. He was just on fire and in the zone. What more needs to be said?
Good luck to the Lakers on Sunday afternoon.
The 3s keep falling
In NBA history there have been only 18 occurrences where players have hit 10 or more 3-pointers in a game. Four of them have happened this year, three of them have happened in the last month and now two of them have happened in the court of two days.
Chandler Parsons scored 34 points on 10-for-14 shooting from beyond the arc in a loss to Memphis. Last year's slam dunk champion scored 51 points and his 10 of his 17 3-point attempts. That is pretty nuts.
The funny part is that both teams lost their games in which the player did that.
Ross, though, a second-year player known more for his athletic dunks than his 3-point shooting really announced himself as a legitimate player. Doc Rivers joked that on the scouting report Ross was the guy to leave open.
Zarar Siddiqi of Raptors Republic, for one, was very excited:
Here’s a guy who I was comparing to Chris Jefferies not too long ago dropping 51 points against a Western conference contender. The variety on offer at the ACC last night ranged from long-range bombs, put-back dunks, side-stepping screens, drives to the lane and even some hang-time layups. So it’s not like he just got hot from outside – there was a little bit of everything to Ross’s game. The Clippers tried putting everyone from Jamal Crawford to Matt Barnes on him, only to find out that once a player gets hot hot, there’s little one can do.
Durant is just awesome
And then there was Durant. He took Friday night off with shoulder soreness like a pitcher needing a day's rest after throwing too hard. His consecutive game streak of 30-point games has been simply astounding.
In the last 10 games, Durant is averaging 38.2 points per game and is shooting 54.0 percent from the floor. He has also averaged 6.5 rebounds per game and 6.1 assists per game.
That was maybe a prelude to Saturday's triple double performance, the fifth triple double of his career.
And he probably still has a lot more in store for us still.
