The question at the Garden last night wasn’t so much “Will LeBron James have a big game?” as much as it was “In what creative way will LeBron James torch the Knicks so as to match Kobe Bryant’s 61-point performance on Monday?” The answer? A triple-double, including 52 points, in a 107–102 Cavs win. A couple of ways of looking at how impressive LeBron’s night was: It was the first time anyone’s scored 50 in a triple-double since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did it in 1975, and he joins Michael Jordan as the only visiting players to score 50 points at the Garden twice. Thank goodness he’ll only be a visiting player at the Garden for one more year!
It’s safe to say that so far, “Dream Week” is going pretty much as expected. But we’re a little worried about where this is headed. Will the league’s best players continue to one-up each other when they visit the Garden? Will Paul Pierce go for 40 tomorrow night, as part of a quadruple-double, and perhaps do it blindfolded? When Orlando visits in three weeks, will Dwight Howard attempt a dunk from the top of the key? It’s not like the Knicks are rolling over for these teams, but their high-scoring games are conducive to players experimenting against them. For a team just a game out of a playoff spot, next week’s three-game West Coast trip can’t come soon enough.
