Three Stars of the Night: Bombs Away

Chicks dig the long ball, right? Well, for tonight’s Three Stars we’ve got some sharp shooting goodness from behind the arc, a man who’s getting awful comfortable in this space, and an off the bench performance that sunk the struggling Lakers.

Third Star: Randy Foye (17 points, 5-9 three pointers)

It wasn’t so much the efficiency as Foye only hit 5 of his 11 shots from the floor (though all of them were three pointers). It wasn’t the fact that he led his team in scoring (sorry, that was Al Jefferson with 18 points). And it wasn’t the fact that Foye stuffed the stat sheet in other areas that helped his team win the game (he only had one rebound and no assists on the night). Nope. It was none of that.

It was the fact that Foye hit big shot after big shot in the 4th quarter against the Lakers to keep them reeling on the ropes and ultimately delivered the knock out blow. With the Lakers making a push in the middle of the period and closing the gap to a very manageable five points, Foye hit three pointers on back to back to back possessions to put the Jazz back up by eleven.

After the final shot went through the net the Lakers comeback was toast and Foye was the hero for his team. He felt so good, he even tried to chest bump his head coach (who wasn’t having any of it).

Second Star: Kenneth Faried (16 points, 16 rebounds)

After making this list for the second straight night, we may just have to start a Faried feature here at PBT. After his performance tonight in the Nuggets win over the Rockets, he’s certainly earned it.

With Faried it’s pretty simple. He simply out-works and out-hustles you on every play. He’s a demon around the paint on both ends of the floor, tireless on the glass, and finds a way to get baskets even though he’s undersized. Tonight he was a real difference maker for the Nuggets. Plus, he hooked up with Andre Miller on an early candidate for lob of the year:

First Star: Shannon Brown (24 points in 24 minutes, 6-8 from behind the arc)

Sometimes a player gets so hot that you really can’t believe what you’re seeing. Everything coming off his hand looks like it’s going in and nearly every single time it actually does. Tonight, in the 4th quarter of the Suns/Bobcats game, that was Shannon Brown.

Coming into that final period, Brown had performed quite normally in scoring six points on only 1-4 shooting. And then it all changed. One deep three fell through off an assist from Sebastian Telfair. Then another hit the bottom of the net. Then another. THEN ANOTHER.

By the time the period was over Brown had hit six threes in the period without missing a single one and had helped the Suns pull out the win on the road. There aren’t many nights where any player is going to be that hot for even a short stretch of the game, much less an entire period. It was a sight to behold. See for yourself: