Merry Christmas, Dwyane Wade owners. The man absolutely went off today in the most highly-promoted matchup of the season so far, as his Heat beat the Lakers, 101-85. And in their much-anticipated individual matchup, D-Wade destroyed KB24 (Kobe Bryant) with 40, 11 dimes, and a Kirilenko-esque 4 steals and blocks, while Kobe managed just 16 points on 4-17 shooting. Kobe wasn’t even the best player on the Lakers today, as Ronny Turiaf made the most of some big minutes.
| Min | FG | 3Pt | FT | Off | Reb | Ast | TO | Stl | Blk | PF | Pts | |
| Kobe | 37 | 4-17 | 0-4 | 8-9 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 16 |
| Dwyane | 41 | 12-20 | 1-1 | 15-16 | 0 | 4 | 11 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 40 |
In fact, that’s not the only way that Wade punked Kobe today… Wade’s game was good enough to knock off Kobe as the best single-game line of the season. (You’ll see it on the RotoPoll top games list tomorrow–and if you were wondering, Kobe’s performance clocked in at a solid average ranking of 226th.)
Update: Upon looking at their lines side-by-side, you can see that Wade outperformed Kobe in every single category, and by a lot. This was an out-and-out fantasy thrashing.
December 26, 2006 at 12:53 pm
It was an out-and-out real thrashing, too. That game was enough to serve as the main piece of evidence in any case somebody wants to make as to why they would take Dwayne Wade over Kobe Bryant. In a contest where Kobe was promoting himself as a renewed team player, Wade created shots for his team and still managed 40 opints (on only 20 shots). Not to mention Bryant’s primary defensive responsibility was Wade. A truly embarrassing result for Mamba.
December 26, 2006 at 1:09 pm
I saw the Wade highlights on ESPN. Wade had a sweet spin move where he took no less than 4 complete steps and hop after lifting his dribble. god, I love this game.
December 26, 2006 at 1:31 pm
It may not be fair to single out Wade as a recipient of non-travel calls (LeBron certainly gets his share too) but it’s honestly one of the reasons I have a hard time embracing him. Clearly he’s good enough that he could be a superstar without having to take 3 pivot steps, but for whatever reason, they let him get away with it, and it’s annoying. He killed the Pistons with his dance steps and phantom foul calls last year in the conference finals.
December 26, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Don’t even get me started on how many foul calls he gets. He just crashes into people and gets 2 shots all the time. The first half yesterday was silly.
December 26, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Kobe did look bad though. Chalk him up for 55 next time they play.
December 26, 2006 at 1:55 pm
İlk Türk Milliyetcisi
December 26, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Ok, here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0yzPQ7XpXY
It looks like a sweet move at first. However… Though it’s kind of hard to do a frame-by-frame on YouTube, if you do, you’ll see that Wade takes no fewer than four steps after picking up his dribble. It’s somewhat unfair to Korver to make fun of him for getting crossed up when the guy gets four steps.
December 26, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Kobe sucks anyway. He is a selfish player.
December 27, 2006 at 12:31 pm
dfg
January 4, 2007 at 10:30 pm
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