C.J. McCollum Caught Fire And Dropped 50 Points On The Bulls In Three Quarters

If we’re being perfectly honest, the last two games of Wednesday night’s NBA slate looked a little bit like a snooze fest. On ESPN, there was the fate-worse-than-death matchup between a pair of Western Conference bottom-feeders, the Suns and Mavs, which was on national television by way of random draw, one would assume.

That was accompanied by a low-stakes contest between the Blazers and Bulls that only holds intrinsic meaning to Portland as they look to extend their win streak to four and maintain their hold on the No. 6 seed in the West.

But apparently nobody told C.J. McCollum that he could take the night off mentally if he so chose. Because the Blazers hot-shooting guard came out and set a franchise record in the opening quarter by dropping 28 points, which is the most scored in a quarter around the NBA so far this season.

Not only did McCollum set a team record for points in a quarter, he did it in hyper-efficient fashion by making 11 of his 14 field goal attempts overall, including 4-of-5 from behind the arc.

McCollum finished the game with 50 points, doing so in three quarters, joining James Harden as the only two players to accomplish that feat this season, and it only took him 29 minutes of action to get there which makes him the second player to accomplish that feat since 1983, along with Klay Thompson. McCollum shot a cool 18-of-25 (72 percent) from the field, knocking down 6-of-9 three-pointers and was a perfect 8-of-8 from the stripe, which is where he got to that magical 50 number as the third quarter neared its end.

McCollum’s 50-point effort makes him the seventh player in Blazers history to reach that milestone, and it’s a shame the game was not more competitive to force Terry Stotts to leave him in the game, because it’s amazing to think about what he could’ve done playing normal minutes.