All hail Jeremy Lin. That’s now two games in a row that the seldom-used backup has torched opponents and lit the Garden on fire as if he was John Starks. Lin dropped 28 and eight in New York’s 99-88 win over Utah. Beast? Lin seems to finish every three point play, make all the right decisions out of the pick-n-roll and has even shown off his deep ball. At one point in the second half, he dropped a high-arching shot and then trotted back on defense with a swag unlimited smirk before sticking his tongue out (It looked like he had been sucking on some blue lollipops during the quarter break). After seeing that, we immediately loaded up 2K and edited him to all 99s (No we didn’t. But we kinda wanted to). Without Amar’e Stoudemire (his brother recently passed away in a car accident), and later ‘Melo, the Knicks were sporting some of the most sandlot lineups we’ve ever seen. At one point, the broadcast showed a team huddle at the free-throw line, and the guys in white were Lin, Steve Novak, Jared Jeffries, Iman Shumpert and Landry Fields … Carmelo Anthony left the game with an injury to his groin, and then re-emerged looking like he was violating the dress code in about four different ways. He was also standing at times on the Utah bench, which was weird … John Wall gave us a sampler of what he can do when he’s on. A little of this, a little of that, Wall (31 points) made three or four plays in Washington’s 111-108 overtime win against Toronto that were just special. At one point in the second half, Wall was so hyped he was screaming “IT’S MY CITY MAN! THIS IS MY CITY” to the front row … Most random teammates to score 30 a piece in the same game: Linas Kleiza and Jerryd Bayless … Amir Johnson didn’t have the greatest shooting night, and on one possession in particular, he got snuffed by Wall twice, got it back, and then had his shot punched by Trevor Booker … We wonder if this guy, wearing the greatest custom Wizards jersey ever, was at the game … The Clippers went out and overcame a 15-point deficit to beat the Tragic by five in overtime, and then found out later that they’ve probably lost Chauncey Billups for good. Chris Paul went off for 29 points, but Billups went down grabbing his foot in the fourth quarter and had to be carried to the locker room. There are rumors he’s done for the year with an Achilles tear … The Clippers single-covered Dwight Howard all night, and got away with it during the fourth quarter. Superman had 31 and 12 after the third, but went for just two points and two rebounds when it really mattered … Tim Duncan (19 points, 17 rebounds, five blocks) passed Charles Oakley for 20th on the all-time rebounding list with 12,206 in San Antonio’s five-point win over the Grizz. Memphis probably should’ve picked someone else to take their final shot. They gave it to Rudy Gay, who was only 9-for-26, and he promptly air mailed it … Houston ran through Denver with a nine-point win behind 25 from Luis Scola … Keep reading to hear about Kobe’s record-setting night …
Move over Shaq. Kobe has one-upped you again. Bryant moved ahead of O’Neal with 28,601 career points (fifth all time) by going for 28 points (24 of them in the first half) in his hometown, and hitting the historic 23-footer with five minutes to go in the first half. No, the Lakers didn’t win (losing 95-90) in part because once again, Bryant shot too often. But the real story – what everyone wanted to see – was Kobe moving on up the scoring charts. As for the game, it was a collage of weird numbers. The Lakers won the glass battle 55-30, and Lou Williams (24 points) outscored Kobe 14 to two in the fourth quarter (Andre Iguodala‘s defense was insane). Andrew Bynum went for 20 and 20 and yet only got 13 shots … Afterwards, O’Neal tweeted this at his former tag team partner: “Congrats to Kobe for being the greatest laker ever thanks for making us the greatest laker one two punch ever.” So Shaq is putting it out there: Bryant is the greatest Laker ever. Do you agree? We’ll put it like this: By the time that dude’s career is over, we don’t think this will be a question. His resume will be completely ridiculous (especially if he plays for as long as we suspect) … Surprised we never saw this before, but Lou Williams has a tattoo in one of his arm pits. Who does that? … Oklahoma City survived in OT against Portland as Russell Westbrook (28 points, 11 assists) and Kevin Durant (33 points) put in work. With the Durantula driving to his left on the Thunder’s final possession of regulation, LaMarcus Aldridge (39 points) got whistled for goaltending. It was a bad, bad call (please don’t fine us David Stern) … Turned out it was deflating, too. The Blazers had chipped away like a mason, and had the Rose Garden jumping like they’d just seen a free screening of “Portlandia.” But once it got to OT, the ‘Zers lost their zing, putting every shot on the front of the iron … Steve Nash missed three shots and picked the Hawks apart with 24 points and 11 dimes in Phoenix’s surprising 99-90 win over Atlanta … Chicago pimp slapped the Nets, but Derrick Rose had to leave after just 10 minutes with some bad back spasms … And in what’s becoming a theme, Tyreke Evans (20 points) and DeMarcus Cousins (28 points, 19 rebounds) carried Sacramento to another win, 100-92 over the New Orleans Generals. Evans, in particular, had four “Holy s—!” layups in the fourth quarter … Oliver Miller gets a year in jail for repeatedly pistol whipping his brother-in-law over the head at a family party … And there’s talk Allen Iverson could be playing again… in Puerto Rico. We have a nice little post on Iverson scheduled to release at 11 a.m. EST this morning. If you’re a fan of Eastbound & Down, you’re gonna like it … We’re out like Oliver Miller, the enforcer.
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