With 22 teams in action, you’d expect the usual suspects to be the big scorers of the night. Guys like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and James Harden. The guys battling Kobe Bryant for the scoring title. Those guys.
Nope! Saturday was a little bit wild and crazy, and as a result we had Luis Scola balling out and dropping 33 and 10 on the Timberwolves while Nikola Pekovic smashed his way to 28. We saw David West (29 points) continue to do his share of the scoring while Roy Hibbert (21 minutes, zero points) went missing yet again. The Jrue Holiday show raged on with 29 points and a near triple-double, but actually, Holiday’s 7 turnovers almost gave him the rare quadruple-double-trouble, which really would have set the evening off nicely.
Instead, it seems like we’ll have to settle for a scoring battle between an awkward 7-footer who loves comic books and shoots a set-shot and a reserve forward who averages 8.5 points a game on his career. It’s weird, it’s hard to explain, and it’s Three Stars:
Third Star: C.J. Miles - (33 points, 8-for-10 from 3-point land)
Look, guys, I don’t know either. C.J. Miles is a career 41 percent shooter from the field and a career 33 percent shooter from behind the arc. This should not be happening, but Miles has a really weird habit of getting hot and then suddenly morphing into this unstoppable offensive force. You either believe in the hot hand theory or you don’t, but everyone watching tonight knew Miles was hot. He was catching passes and firing away like he was Ray Allen whenever he had a look at the basket, never hesitating once to think, “I’m C.J. Miles.” It got to the point where the announcers were preaching the importance of keeping the ball out of the hands of C.J. Miles, which feels absurd to even type. Whatever it was, Miles and his 33-point explosion kept the shorthanded Cavs in it, even with Luke Walton on the floor for 30 minutes. While this may come as surprise to exactly no one, eight 3-pointers is indeed a career high for Miles. He was stupid good tonight.
Second Star: Russell Westbrook - (28 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists)
Ah, a nice return to normalcy, both for Westbrook and for Three Stars. With Kevin Durant unable to get it going early on, Westbrook took the scoring load on his shoulders and blew past Houston’s defense all night. Westbrook may get criticized for taking an inordinate amount of jumpers off his own dribble, but when he’s scoring at the rim and those jumpers are falling, he instantly morphs into one of the more unstoppable players in all of basketball. Westbrook’s jumper has sort of abandoned him to start the season, but it was certainly falling tonight.
First Star: Brook Lopez - (35 points, 11 rebounds)
Lopez was an absolute monster against the Varejao-less Cavs, as he scored a whopping 11 field goals in the paint and went to the free-throw line 11 times as well. While Lopez may not be considered fleet of foot, he’s a load on the low block and around the rim, especially against a rail-thin big man like rookie center Tyler Zeller. That’s not to take anything away from Lopez -- he showed his usual soft touch and he gobbled up some offensive rebounds, something he doesn’t always do. Perhaps it’s because of the time he missed due to injury this year or because of the other distractions in Brooklyn right now, but Lopez has been posting some pretty incredible numbers with very little fanfare. His rebounding percentages are back to respectable levels, his PER is really solid at 24.5, and he’s averaging 22 points per 36 minutes on 51 percent shooting. Lopez probably isn’t regarded as a player you would build an offense around, but he’s a better option for that than Deron Williams is right now. That’s something to keep in mind, especially if post-oriented coaches like Phil Jackson or Mike Dunleavy do end up in Brooklyn. Lopez, even with that hideously effective set-shot off the glass from 18-feet, is the best bet for consistent offensive production the Nets have.
