Should you have to lead your team to victory to make it into our nightly three stars tribute?
I say no. But it helps. If you are someone like Carmelo Anthony on Wednesday with 31 points and 9 rebounds in a losing effort, you can still make the list. Well, he didn’t because I put a couple of guys who did get wins ahead of him. But you theoretically can make the cut. Also with good nights but not making the grade Wednesday were the Kevins —Garnett (27 points, 10 rebounds), and Durant (25 points, 7 rebounds). Guys just had bigger nights. Sorry. So here are the guys that made the cut tonight.
Third Star: O.J. Mayo (28 points, 5 assists)
O.J. Mayo was the model of efficiency in a quality win for Dallas over Portland — 28 points on 11-of-14 shooting, 3-of-4 from three and a +15 on the night. He did a lot of scoring damage in the first half — 20 of his points came before the break — but in the second half he did a good job of drawing the defenders and moving the ball to the open man. And for a night the Mayo/Dirk Nowitzki pick-and-roll was an impressive thing to see. That’s a took I expect to see Rick Carlisle go to more and more over the second half of the season.
Second Star: James Harden (36 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists)
See, you can still make the top three if your team loses, you just have to put up some big numbers. James Harden did that and did it most when it counted — he had 16 points in the fourth quarter as he tried to lead the Rockets on a comeback. All game Harden pretty much did what he wanted, it just wasn’t enough as he didn’t get all the help he needed (no team shuts down Jeremy Lin quite like the Heat).
First Star: Dwyane Wade (31 points, 8 assists, 5 rebounds, 4 steals)
All those stats up there and we leave off blocks — Wade had two, including one on Harden with 11 seconds remaining to ice the game. Wade seems to get up for taking on the challenge of Harden (the heir apparent to Wade’s “best two guard” in the game mantle) and you saw it from the start when Wade had 11 points in the first quarter. Wade was attacking the rim — he got to the line 13 times — and of course it’s not a Heat game unless he goes Joe Flacco and hits LeBron James with a length-of-the-court pass.
