The Lakers may have lost center Andrew Bynum for 8-12 weeks with an MCL tear, but that apparently isn’t going to faze Kobe Bryant. Bryant let loose for 61 points in 36 minutes against the Knicks last night — the highest mark ever attained in the current Madison Square Garden — as the Lakers beat the Knicks last night 126-117 (UPDATE: video below).
Bryant shot 19-of-31 from the field and hit all 20 of his free throws for the fifth 60+ point game of his career, which may have been motivated by his close relationships with Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni and director Spike Lee, with whom he’s working on a documentary.
“I didn’t feel like sitting next to [Lee] and hearing him talking trash about the Knicks, so that was added incentive as well,” Bryant said. “Seriously. He’s going to get an earful tonight.”
Well, if he hadn’t scored 61 points, he could have fallen back on the “Miracle at St. Anna was a steaming pile of dogshit” defense.
Other NBA action: Chris Paul injures groin; Blazers beat Hornets… Spurs beat Golden State in OT… Suns rout Kings. I miss football season.
Lakers guard Jordan Farmar is writing a blog for Playboy while rehabbing his bum knee, and in his latest entry he talks about his alma mater (UCLA) and the potentially deadly dangers of being a sports star there. Yes, deadly. A man can drown in poon, you know.
[F]emale fans’ attention is part of the life on campus, and it’s all good. You’re young, you’re doing what you love and you get attention from girls and everyone else, ’cause they all know who you are. So it’s nice when girls give you that attention. But sometimes, the girls and fans can get a little pushy. [...]
Groupies are always part of campus life and it’s something you have to watch out for. Girls used to come to our dorm room all the time, knocking on our door, leaving off notes and propositions. [...]
And you get some invasion of privacy, like I said, they’re knocking on your door, all the time. There’s no secret where you’re staying when you’re living on campus. Most freshman [sic] and sometimes sophomores stay on campus, so they’re the ones getting hit on. [...] Until [you move off-campus], there’s notes and cards under the door, gifts, Valentine’s Day-grams, all kinds of stuff. Girls in the stands are wearing your jersey with writing asking you to marry them. Anything you can think of, it happens.
You mean there’s no shortage of hot, horny 18- and 19-year-olds who ache for you and know where to find you? That sounds awful. Just… awful. Whoa, hey, I just popped some capillaries in my eyes. Who knew you could do that from clenching your teeth?
Stephon Marbury, banned from the Knicks after his initial benching and subsequent refusal to play for the team, has temporarily relocated to Los Angeles, where last night he watched the Knicks lose to the illness-plagued Lakers (recap here) — as a paying fan with courtside tickets. From the New York Post:
“I’m not worried about [where I'll play next],” Marbury said. “All I got to do is get free. Once I get free, the team I’m going to go to a lot of people will be shocked. All the people who say nobody wants me on their team, I’m all different things, a cancer, that’s not what’s going on.”
Not to nit-pick, but that IS what’s going on. Like, exactly what’s going on. Marbury is the opposite of correct.
Asked why he attended, Marbury said, “I just wanted to see the game. I miss it a lot. It’s the closest I can get to the game right now.”
Awww, poor guy. He misses the game. Why, if you gave him the choice of playing for free or sabotaging the team and refusing to play while continuing to collect a paycheck, he’d… uh, go with sabotage. Definitely sabotage.
Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, both hampered by extreme gayness, sat out of the Spurs’ win over the Knicks
The Lakers continued their early season dominance, rallying in the second half to beat the Mavericks 106-99 and improve their perfect record to 6-0. Bored by that? Me too.
Perhaps more impressive — or at least more surprising — is that the young Hawks are the NBA’s only other unbeaten team. Al Horford scored a career-high 27 points to go with 17 rebounds and six blocks as Atlanta fended off the Bulls 113-108. Even Mike Bibby (who is terrible) wasn’t terrible, scoring 22 points with some clutch three-point shooting to kill a Bulls rally.
Elsewhere in the Association: LeBron dropped 40+ for the third time in four games as the Cavs won their fifth straight. Keep doing that, Bron, and you’ll never get real teammates… Allen Iverson went off for 30 points and nine dimes against the Kings to help Detroit to its first win in the AI era (see video after the jump)… Some other games happened. Jumping, dribbling, etc. You know the drill.
This isn’t the first time David Beckham has been caught staring at the Lakers Girls. When it happened before, I was like, whatever, we all look at cheerleaders, that’s what they’re there for. But that was one photo. This is an entire gallery of him checking out the Laker Girls. And for that I say: bravo, sir. Look at him, practically burning holes in that blond. If he had X-ray vision, they’d all have cancer.
Kobe Bryant fell down during a single play in the preseason, and the Kings’ Beno Udrih subsequently made a jump shot, which immediately raises the question: is Beno Udrih the best basketball player in the world? And I think the evidence here is pretty indisputable. Sure, Kobe was the linchpin to America’s return to glory, but the video doesn’t lie. You don’t see anyone trying to argue that Craig Ehlo is better than Michael Jordan, do you?
