AD had a historic night against the Grizzlies

Anthony Davis and the Lakers made a statement against the Grizzlies today in a 120-91 victory.

Davis punctuated a strong first half with a buzzer beater to end the second quarter, and tallied up 20 points and 12 rebounds to start . He finished with 40 points and 20 rebounds. His aggressiveness paid off, seeing him shoot 26 of 27 from the free throw line (18 of 18 in the third quarter). He set the Lakers record for made free throws. He was the also first person to also get 40 points and 20 rebounds in 30 minutes or less (he did finish with 31 minutes but he got to those numbers beforehand).

LeBron James played a solid role in the victory as well. He started off slow again, as seems to be his recent style, but then started to turn it on in the second half. He finished with 23 points and 8 assists.

The Grizzlies, to their credit, kept the game close for the first three quarters and held the lead a few times. Their efforts were led by Jonas Valanciunas, who is showing that he is an effective player and not just a throwaway in the deal that sent franchise legend Marc Gasol to Toronto to win his championship.

Just like the Clippers yesterday, the Lakers turned on the heat later in the third quarter, and pulled away for the solid victory. They went on an 22-0 run in the third to turn a close game into a blowout.

Jimmy Buckets makes a triumphant debut for the Heat

We know we said that the Heat had no business beating the Bucks the other day, but that was before Jimmy Butler came back and finally made his regular season debut for the Heat. Butler didn’t disappoint, putting up 21 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals in a 112-97 win.

Butler wasn’t even the Heat’s leading scorer. That disctinction went to Tyler Herro, who put up a solid 29 points and 7 rebounds. Three other players scored 17 or more points as well: Goran Dragic (21 PTS), Bam Adebayo (17 PTS), and Kendrick Nunn (17 PTS).

John Collins dropped in 30 points for Atlanta but no one else helped much.

The Mavericks grinded out a win against the Nuggets

A 10/10/10 triple double from Nikola Jokic wasn’t enough to help the Nuggets edge out the Mavericks, who are looking like they could make a solid claim for a playoff berth in the bloodbath known as the Western Conference. The game finished close, with the Mavericks winning 109-106.

Here’s an interesting statline from the game. Out of the ten players that saw minutes for the Mavericks, NINE of them scored in double figures. This proved be be the key to victory, with relatively quiet nights happening for their Euro Duo of Kristaps Porzingis (10 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists) and Luka Doncic (10 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists).