Three Stars of the Night: When Duty Calls

Points are put on a pedestal in the NBA, so what happens when a team loses its big scorer to injury or simply doesn’t have one on the roster? Other guys step up. We tend to forget, but just about every NBA player (earmuffs, Reggie Evans) can score when given enough chances. It might not always going to be pretty, or efficient, but most of these guys have scored 30 points a game on some level. For tonight’s Three Stars, we showcase three guys who answered the scoring bell and led their teams to victory.

Third Star: Andrei Kirilenko (18 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 blocks)

Continually underrated, Kirilenko has been putting up stat lines like this for ages to little fanfare outside of the fantasy basketball crowd. Even when he was tearing it up overseas as a number one option, the NBA crowd still remained skeptical. With Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio out, the Wolves have started the season scoring by committee, but tonight it was AK47 who took over the game in the second half and put the Wolves on his wings to overcome a 15-point deficit at the break.

Second Star: O.J. Mayo (32 points on 12-for-18 shooting)

Make that back-to-back games with over 30 points for Mayo, who has taken the Mavericks’ primary scorer role and ran with it early in the season. Mayo has looked like a perfect match next to point guard Darren Collison, a burner who flies up the court and looks for kickout opportunities to spot up shooters. Fortunately for Mayo, he’s the only one young enough and athletic enough to keep up with Collison, so the ball just keeps finding his way. Let’s see a bigger sample size before we announce that Mayo has finally reached his potential, but it’s a good start nonetheless.

First Star: Marc Gasol (22 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 blocks)

It’s stunning how good Gasol is when he’s aggressive and Memphis makes it a priority to run the offense through him. Because the Grizzlies offense has about the same spacing as five guys in an elevator would, Gasol often finds himself away from the basket to at least try and allow some driving lanes. Gasol lived a little closer to the basket tonight, and really just overwhelmed Al Jefferson and company with his size. Gasol, an incredibly underrated defender, also took care of Jefferson on the other end, staying on his feet and refusing to fall in the web of pump fakes Jefferson typically spins. And how about those 8 assists? Is there a better passing big man than Marc Gasol? Maybe his brother Pau, but that’s about it.